SurfSense/surfsense_web/changelog/content/2026-04-16.mdx

---
title: "SurfSense v0.0.16 - Try SurfSense With No Login, Long-Term Memory, Token Tracking & AI File Sorting"
description: "SurfSense v0.0.16 introduces a no-login online experience so anyone can try this free ChatGPT alternative in seconds, long-term user and team memory, a reworked model selector with full token usage tracking, AI-powered file sorting, one-click Knowledge Base export as ZIP, trusted MCP tools, and OpenRouter integration."
date: "2026-04-16"
tags: ["No Login", "Memory", "Token Usage", "AI File Sorting", "KB Export", "OpenRouter", "MCP"]
version: "0.0.16"
---

## What's New in v0.0.16

If you've ever wanted to try an **online ChatGPT alternative** or a **free AI chatbot like ChatGPT** without creating an account, v0.0.16 is for you. This release makes SurfSense instantly accessible with a **no-login** online experience, adds durable long-term memory for users and teams, brings full token-usage visibility to every chat, introduces AI file sorting, and ships a brand-new knowledge base export feature. It turns SurfSense into an even more practical **free alternative to ChatGPT** for real knowledge work.

### No-Login Online Experience

- **ChatGPT Online, No Login Required**: Try SurfSense online for free without signing up. First-time visitors can chat and test the **free ChatGPT alternative** experience instantly, with free tokens included.
- **Anonymous-Friendly**: Sign-in is now optional on the public experience, while your authenticated data stays fully protected.
- **Cleaner Behind the Scenes**: Removed leftover artifacts from the older sync system for a smoother experience.

### Long-Term Memory for Users & Teams

SurfSense agents now actually **remember**.

- **Personal & Team Memory**: SurfSense can now remember durable information about you and your team across chats, stored cleanly as markdown you can read and edit yourself.
- **Natural Greetings**: Memory now includes your display name and first-name context, so replies feel more personal.
- **One Simple Memory Tool**: A single, unified "update memory" action handles personal and shared memory, with sensible size limits.
- **Runs in the Background**: Memory extraction happens in the background, so it never slows down your chat.
- **Smart Team Memory Policy**: Team memory only captures durable, relevant context and ignores noise, so shared memory stays useful.
- **Memory Management UI**: A clean screen for viewing, pinning, and editing personal and team memory, with helpful empty states and limit warnings.
- **Export Memory as Markdown**: Download your personal or team memory as a markdown file with one click.
- **Clean Migration**: Old memory storage has been fully migrated to the new format.

### Token Usage Tracking Across Chat

Token visibility is now first-class.

- **Usage Per Call**: SurfSense now tracks how many tokens every AI call uses.
- **Complete Coverage**: Token usage is captured for both streaming and non-streaming AI responses.
- **Inline in Chat**: See token usage for any message via a simple info dropdown on the message itself.
- **Better Response Handling**: Cleaner response behavior and chat title generation built around token tracking.

### Reworked Model Selector

- **Redesigned Model Picker**: A cleaner UI with a new GitHub Models icon and per-agent model management for power users.
- **OpenRouter Integration**: Hundreds of models (including **free Claude**-compatible routes) are now available through a single OpenRouter configuration.
- **Clearer Model Display**: Message info now shows which model was used for every reply, with simpler settings and improved icons.

### AI File Sorting

- **AI Sort Button**: A new AI-powered sort in the documents table. Let the AI rank and group your documents semantically. It's a real quality-of-life win for anyone with a large knowledge base.

### Knowledge Base Export

- **Export Your Knowledge Base as ZIP**: One click downloads your entire knowledge base as a ZIP with your folder structure preserved.
- **Folder-Level Export**: Right-click any folder to export just that folder.
- **Processing Warning**: SurfSense warns you if documents are still processing, so you never ship an incomplete archive.
- **Prominent Export Buttons**: Export is easy to find in both the documents toolbar and the sidebar, with a loading spinner during large exports.

### Trusted MCP Tools

- **Trust Sensitive Tools Once**: Mark specific MCP tools as trusted and skip repeated approval prompts for actions you've already decided are safe.
- **Cleanup on Delete**: Removing an MCP connector now correctly clears related caches, so stale entries never hang around.

### Document Upload & Processing Modes

- **Pick Your Processing Mode**: Document uploads now let you choose how each file is parsed, with clearer error messages if something goes wrong.
- **LlamaCloud v2**: Upgraded to the new LlamaCloud integration.
- **Smarter Image Handling**: Uploaded images now automatically go through a vision model, with a document-parser fallback and clearer behavior when vision models aren't configured.

### Code Execution Sandbox

- **Cleaner Code Tool**: The built-in "execute code" tool is simpler and more reliable, with helpful hints when your code produces no output.
- **Run in Parallel, Download Files**: The sandbox now supports multi-threaded execution and lets you download files produced by your code back into chat.
- **No More Orphans**: Broken sandboxes are cleaned up before a replacement is created, so nothing piles up in the background.
- **Hardened Security**: Tighter security settings, safer file syncing, and a fix for potential path traversal issues.

### Unified Approvals

- **One Approval Flow Everywhere**: Approvals across Confluence, Dropbox, Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Drive, Jira, Linear, Notion, and OneDrive are now consistent, with a shared approval UI.
- **Smarter Deduplication**: Duplicate approval requests are filtered out, so you're never prompted twice for the same action.

### Connectors & Desktop

- **Obsidian Connector Visibility**: The Obsidian connector is now easier to discover and set up on desktop.
- **Cross-OS Download Buttons**: The sidebar profile and a new download button automatically show the right desktop installer for your OS, in your language.

### Marketing & SEO

- **New Blog Section**: Added a dedicated blog section to the marketing site for deeper guides on **ChatGPT alternatives**, **Claude alternatives**, and **NotebookLM alternatives**.
- **Improved SEO Metadata**: Updated metadata across key pages to emphasize privacy, data limits, and open source positioning.
- **Pricing FAQ**: New FAQ section in pricing with dynamic questions.
- **Pricing Clarity**: Updated pricing to clearly show the 500 pages included in the free plan.

### UI Polish

- **Safer Error Recovery**: A dedicated error boundary around the dashboard prevents isolated errors from crashing the full page.
- **Animated Report Skeleton**: A new animated loading state in the Report Panel while reports are being generated.
- **Composer & Layout**: Loading placeholders in the composer, a better mention picker experience, and refined settings layout.
- **Better Editing**: Trailing empty lines in the rich-text editor make long-form writing smoother.

<Accordion type="multiple" className="w-full not-prose">
  <AccordionItem value="item-1">
    <AccordionTrigger>Bug Fixes</AccordionTrigger>
    <AccordionContent className="flex flex-col gap-4 text-balance">
      <ul className="list-disc space-y-2 pl-4">
        <li>Fixed knowledge base search being skipped in certain chat sequences</li>
        <li>Fixed a button nesting issue in the mobile upload area</li>
        <li>Clearer logs and behavior when a vision model isn't available vs. not configured</li>
        <li>Added a safety check for very large images before vision processing</li>
        <li>Better fallback when an image can't be processed by the vision model</li>
        <li>Fixed duplicate filename collisions during folder upload</li>
        <li>Cleaner filenames on folder uploads</li>
        <li>More accurate "documents still processing" warning during folder export</li>
        <li>Handled display names that are just whitespace without crashing</li>
        <li>Added user feedback when snapshot deletion fails</li>
        <li>Updated billing text to reflect 500 pages included in demo plans</li>
      </ul>
    </AccordionContent>
  </AccordionItem>
  <AccordionItem value="item-2">
    <AccordionTrigger>Under the Hood</AccordionTrigger>
    <AccordionContent className="flex flex-col gap-4 text-balance">
      <ul className="list-disc space-y-2 pl-4">
        <li>Old memory storage fully migrated and retired</li>
        <li>Smaller bundles on public marketing pages</li>
        <li>Consistent approval handling across all connectors</li>
        <li>Cleaner file type detection using explicit, well-defined rules</li>
        <li>Rich-text editor now powers memory input, with inline alerts and a better layout</li>
        <li>Localized folder-upload messages and download button text</li>
      </ul>
    </AccordionContent>
  </AccordionItem>
</Accordion>

v0.0.16 makes SurfSense the easiest open source AI assistant to actually try: zero friction, no login, online. Whether you're searching for a **ChatGPT alternative free online**, a **free Claude AI alternative**, or a **NotebookLM alternative** you can self-host, SurfSense v0.0.16 is built for you.

SurfSense connects all your knowledge sources in one place.