You can now receive notifications in Slack about comments on files you’re watching, @-mentions in comments, reactions to your comments, and file invitations. If you’re a workspace admin, you can also receive notifications about new members in your workspace and requests from viewers to become editors.

To get started, connect the Slack app to your Whimsical account by going to https://whimsical.com/install/slack, or learn more about the Whimsical Slack app.

Do you get too much email? Whimsical now lets you choose how you want to receive notifications. For each notification type, you can choose if you want to be notified by email, Slack, or just in the notification inbox.

Configure your notifications at https://whimsical.com/account.

We’ve released the notification inbox, a centralized space for all your Whimsical workspace activity. You’ll receive alerts for comments, mentions, reactions, file invites, and access requests. You can also customize your email settings to stay focused and minimize distractions. We hope this feature helps you manage your work both efficiently and calmly in Whimsical.

Users logging in with SAML will now see a notice before their session expires. This lets them re-authenticate at a convenient time, instead of being interrupted in the middle of their work.

The warning will show 2 hours, 1 hour, and 10 minutes before your session expires.

This feature is available for all workspaces with a timed SAML session expiration policy. Learn more about SAML session expiration.

We now support AVIF image files in Whimsical boards and docs. AVIF, a next-generation image format, offers better compression and quality, wide color gamut, and high dynamic range (HDR), meaning your pictures will look sharper while taking up less space. This ensures that your images load faster without sacrificing quality.

AVIF support is available for all users. You can add an AVIF image by selecting “Upload image” from the toolbar, or by dragging it from your computer onto a board or doc.

This visual refresh of the sidebar enhances focus on the file you’re working on while allowing the sidebar to visually recede. This update also hints at upcoming UI changes planned for the near future.

We added four new endpoints to make your next database model even nicer in boards. To customize an endpoint, select the connector and click on the three dots next to it.

We’ve released a desktop app for macOS. Enjoy everything you love about Whimsical in the browser plus a more permanent home for your Whimsical work, tabs for better organization, keyboard shortcuts for moving between tabs, and a beautiful icon for your dock.

Download it here

Now you can add code blocks in boards, similar to docs. Simply highlight your code snippet in a text object, choose the code block type and you’re good to go.

If you open a Whimsical link you don’t have permission to view, you can now easily request access from within Whimsical. To request access, simply click on the file link, and you’ll see the option to “Request Access” on the access denied page. You can also include an optional note to accompany your access request. The owner will receive an email notification and can grant access with just a click.

If you have the Whimsical integration for Slack installed, you can also approve the access request from within Slack.

Note that you must be a member of the same workspace as the file’s owner to request access to the file. This ensures that sensitive information remains secure within your team’s environment. Learn more about requesting access to files.