Updates

Settings → Updates previews three highlights for the installed version. Show all N changes expands the complete list, and Show fewer changes collapses it. Release notes opens the release history; download and restart controls remain on the same page.

Deska checks for a new release shortly after launch and every few minutes after that. The check is quiet: nothing is downloaded until you ask for it.

1. When a newer version exists, the Update Center card appears in the bottom-right corner of the canvas with a Download button. The corner X hides it for now; updates stay available in Settings.
2. Clicking Download fetches the installer in the background and shows the progress. You can keep working while it runs.
3. When the download finishes the row reads Ready to install, with a Restart now button. On macOS a short step comes first, Preparing the update, while macOS unpacks and checks the new version; Restart now appears once it is done.
4. Clicking Restart now turns the button into Restarting…: Deska saves your session, closes, installs the update and opens again on the new version. It never stops to ask: when an agent or a terminal is still working, the row says what restarting stops, for example Restarting stops 2 working agents, before you click. To keep them running, leave the update waiting and restart later.

You never have to click that last button. A finished download installs itself the next time you quit Deska, so simply closing the app at the end of the day is enough.

The same card watches your coding agent CLIs. When an installed agent (Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Cursor, and Antigravity) falls behind the current release, the Update Center lists it with a one-click update that runs in a terminal panel, and each advisory can be dismissed per provider.

Open Settings (Cmd/Ctrl,) and then Updates. The first row shows the version you are running and a button that walks the whole flow: it reads Check for updates when nothing is waiting, then Download v…, then the download progress (and Preparing… on macOS), then Restart to update, then Restarting…. The second row lists the highlights of the version you are on and links to every Deska release.

The Help menu has Check for Updates…, which does the same thing from anywhere in the app. A manual check is the only one that reports back when there is nothing new: it opens a small dialog telling you that you are on the latest version.

Settings and then Updates also holds Release channel, with two options:

• Stable: the default. Only finished releases, and a prerelease is never offered to you even if it is the newest thing published.
• Beta: prereleases as soon as they go out, plus every stable release. You see new work earlier, with the rough edges that implies.

Switching to Beta re-checks immediately, so a waiting prerelease shows up without you having to wait for the next scheduled check.

The first time you open Deska on a new version, a dialog titled Deska was updated shows the highlights since the version you were on. Show all N changes lists every change grouped by release with its date, so an update that spans several releases lists all of them, and Done closes the dialog. On a first run the dialog waits rather than interrupting the onboarding tour, and shows on the next launch instead. The same highlights are always available in What’s new and in Settings under Updates.

If Deska is still open a while after Restart now, the card says Deska didn’t close for the restart and offers Try again. Quitting and reopening Deska also finishes the update, because a ready update installs when Deska quits.

If Deska comes back on the old version, it picks the same update up again by itself and the card says The last restart didn’t finish the update, with Restart now. There is nothing to download again.

On macOS the installer needs Deska closed while it replaces the app, which takes a few seconds after the window disappears. If you open Deska in that moment, it steps aside and the new version opens as soon as the installer is done.

The password notice during preparation describes the permissions the installer may need; it does not confirm that a macOS dialog is open. If macOS refuses to prepare the downloaded update, Deska offers a manual download or an authorization retry instead of leaving the card waiting for a password.

If the installer cannot be applied, Deska does not leave Restart as a dead button. The card switches to Get update, which opens that version’s official Deska download page so you can download the installer yourself and run it over your current install. Your settings, workspaces and notes are untouched by a reinstall.

• macOS: release builds are signed and notarized, so they install normally. If the card says updating needs an administrator password, Try again prepares the update again and macOS asks for it. If macOS refuses to open a build you downloaded by hand, clear the quarantine flag with xattr -cr /Applications/Deska.app and open it again.
• Windows: SmartScreen may warn when you open a new version, even after extracting its ZIP. Download the current version from the download page and check the Windows guide if you see a warning.

If updates keep failing, Settings and then Diagnostics shows the version and channel Deska thinks it is on, along with the log file path to attach to a report. See Troubleshooting & FAQ.