imsg Files

More Reliable Live Streams And History

• fix: keep imsg watch streams alive with a lightweight polling fallback when macOS misses filesystem events (#78).
• fix: dedupe URL preview balloon messages in watch without dropping similar messages from other chats or older database schemas (#64, thanks @lesaai).
• fix: decode UTF-16LE BOM attributed bodies so plain-text history output recovers messages whose text column is empty (#91, thanks @clawbunny).
• fix: speed up JSON history output by batching attachment and reaction metadata lookups (#81, thanks @kacy).
• fix: speed up chat listing by using chat_message_join.message_date when Messages provides it (#76, thanks @tmad4000).
• docs: clarify stale Full Disk Access grants, Terminal.app permissions, and watch fallback polling requirements (#28, [#32], [#33], [#46], [#83], thanks @wangran870414).

Better Chat, Group, And Account Diagnostics

• feat: add imsg group --chat-id <id> to inspect a chat's identifier, GUID, service, participants, account metadata, and group/direct status (#88, thanks @mryanb).
• feat: resolve Contacts names in chats, history, watch, and direct sends while preserving raw handles for automation (#75, [#77], thanks @regaw-leinad and @jsindy).
• feat: expose read-only account routing hints (account_id, account_login, last_addressed_handle) for multi-number diagnostics (#18).
• fix: include group metadata in CLI JSON history/watch output, not just RPC payloads (#57, thanks @clawbunny).

Sending, RPC, And Automation Fixes

• fix: return best-effort sent message id and guid from RPC send responses when the row can be observed after Messages accepts the send (#85).
• fix: expose RPC watch debounce and default it to 500ms to reduce outbound echo races (#72, [#80]).
• fix: gate RPC watch reaction metadata on include_reactions, not attachments (#82).
• fix: confirm standard tapback reaction selection in Messages automation before reporting success (#53, thanks @PeterRosdahl).
• fix: reject unsupported custom emoji reaction sends instead of taking a no-op AppleScript path (#55).
• fix: detect Tahoe group-send ghost rows and fail instead of reporting false success (#90, thanks @loop).
• docs: document standard tapback sending and watch reaction events (#66, thanks @safaaleigh).

Attachments, Completions, And Install Polish

• feat: optionally report model-compatible converted receive-side attachment files for CAF audio and GIF images (#73, thanks @mfzeidan).
• feat: add shell completions and an LLM-oriented command reference generator (imsg completions bash|zsh|fish|llm) (#21, thanks @bdmorin).
• fix: publish universal macOS release binaries for Homebrew installs (#68, [#79]).
• docs: document the Homebrew install path in the README (#61, thanks @joshuayoes).
• docs: clarify that send --file supports regular file and audio attachments through Messages.app (#35, thanks @rock19).
• docs: add a local release helper for dispatching Homebrew tap updates (#97, thanks @dinakars777).

Advanced IMCore / Tahoe Notes

• feat: add advanced IMCore controls for status, launch, read, and typing diagnostics.
• fix: normalize IMCore typing chat lookup across iMessage, SMS, and any prefixes (#51, [#54], [#56], [#58]).
• fix: report macOS 26/Tahoe IMCore typing entitlement failures as advanced-feature setup errors instead of misleading chat lookup failures (#60).
• docs: document macOS 26 advanced IMCore injection, library-validation, and private-entitlement limits (#60).

Internal Safety

• refactor: centralize Messages schema detection, row decoding, query assembly, typed row IDs, and attachment/reaction query paths behind smaller MessageStore extensions.
• test: expand release packaging, CLI metadata, schema-compatibility, JSON newline, stdout capture, and live-read coverage.