Release 2026.1.12

Big Picture Money 2026.1.12 is our General Availability release. Here are the features and fixes that landed in this update.

Features

Chat streams replies — Working notes and final answers appear in the thread as they are generated (when your provider supports streaming).
Chat sees Transactions filters — When you chat from the Transactions register, the assistant can see the filters currently applied (dates, category, account, and Filters-dialog rules) and query with the same flexibility instead of only text search.
Chat composer Send / Stop — Improved UI for Send and Stop controls.

Contributor License — On pricing, buy the $49 license or turn on Save $10 as a Contributor for $39. Contributor keeps anonymous usage sharing, categorization help, and payee normalize samples on.
Download after purchase — The payment success page offers the installer for your operating system, with Windows, macOS, and Linux one click away. Your license email includes the same version-specific download links so you can come back later and get that build.

Quieter app updates — Background checks now place Update available in the title bar instead of interrupting your work. Download and install progress stays in the bottom-left, and each data file confirms the newly applied version once after unlock, with a release-notes link when available.
Enter in title-bar search — Typing a query no longer auto-selects the first dropdown row. Enter with nothing highlighted opens View all results (the Search page). Use the arrow keys (or move the mouse over a row) to highlight a result, then Enter to open it.
Friendlier screen errors — If a page fails to load, navigation stays available and the main area offers report this issue (prefilled) instead of a raw technical dump. The failure is logged on device for optional follow-up from Home.
Issue reports and screenshots — Help → Report an issue is improved and includes better logs. Every report gets a private reference id such as BPM-ISSUE-123.

Chat incomplete transaction pages — When listing transactions for analysis, the assistant now sees whether the page was truncated and how many rows match. It can now finish paging or query month-by-month.
Chat money amounts — Tool results sent to the assistant already use currency strings (including budget spent/target/remaining), so replies no longer treat raw ledger cents as dollars.
Chat charts and tables — Embedded charts and tables show their date range, and the assistant is guided to use them only when a spending-by-category visual answers the question (not a stack of unrelated full-category reports).
Chat reply scroll — When a long assistant reply finishes, the thread stays near the start of that answer so you can read from the beginning instead of jumping to the end.

Slow screens after unlock on large data files — Unlock no longer freezes Home and other screens while rebuilding the search index on large registers. When a rebuild is needed it no longer blocks the rest of the app for the whole scan.
Search index stuck on "Updating…" — A long AI chat message with emoji or other multi-byte text could crash the background search rebuild and leave the title-bar status on Updating search index… forever. Indexing recovers cleanly now, and that status clears after unlock as expected.

Budget Balance sign and color — Over-budget Balance values now show a leading − and use the same red/yellow/green as the progress bar, instead of looking identical to under-budget amounts.
Transactions after YNAB import on Mac — Opening Transactions after YNAB import no longer crashes on Mac.
YNAB import completion — After a successful Import from YNAB commit, the wizard checks off Commit, shows an Import complete confirmation message.

Default display name on new installs — Settings → General → Your name no longer defaults to "Big Picture Money - Main".
Complete install needed after a full Mac or Linux install — The application was erronously reporting a fill download and install was needed after a patch update because it could not find the merchants database.
Patch updates keep offline matching on Mac and Linux — After a complete install, the app keeps a link to the merchant catalog and matching assets in your app data folder (without using a second full copy of disk space when possible) so a normal smaller update no longer strips them.
macOS keychain password prompts — Bank sync tokens, AI API keys, and license material are read from the OS keychain less often during a session, so you should not see a stream of login-password dialogs after you choose Always Allow once.
First passphrase setup looks like Unlock — Starting a new data file and setting the initial passphrase looked identical to the normal Unlock screen, causing confusion. The new Set Passphrase clarifies the screen intention.
macOS installer improvements — MacOS .dmg installer is visually more interesting and places files in the correct locations.
In-app updates on Ubuntu (.deb) — Help → Check for updates now installs correctly when Big Picture Money was installed from the Debian package.