Upgrading to Shadow 1.0 broke my shadow
Steven Chu
Ty and congrats on the hard work to ship the new version!:
Just wanted to share some feedback from a stressful morning I had with the Shadow 1.0 upgrade. I hope this helps make things smoother for others down the road:
MAIN ISSUE: The upgrade stalled repeatedly and gave me no real indication of why. It wasn’t until I got low disk space messages from other apps that I realized the issue was a lack of free disk space. Clearing space and re-running the app eventually worked, but not before I missed recording an important meeting and panicked thinking I’d lost my entire library.
Totally understand updates are tough to roll out, especially when overhauling a UI—but I wanted to share a few ideas that might help others avoid the same stress spiral:
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Q1: Could the app disallow upgrade unless minimum disk space is available?
It seems the upgrade used just enough space to block itself from completing, which led to a lot of confusion (and fear of data loss). If there was a pre-check that halted or warned users when not enough space is available, that could save a lot of heartache.
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Q2: Is there a way to revert to or preserve the previous UI layout?
The new UI caught me off guard—transcript-first was my go-to mental model, and now it defaults to chat (even when speaker labels haven't been completed yet-- i usually look at that as my first task to complete. Ps. the "assign all to me" is gone now - so not sure what to do there!!). It made it hard to figure out what to do. Would love either a “classic view” toggle or just to know if that’s something being considered.
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Q3: Could a version update prompt include a warning or defer option?
Shadow is one of those apps I open when I really need it to work—usually right before recording something important. It’d be awesome if upgrade prompts came with a reminder like:
“This upgrade will restart Shadow and may take a few minutes. Make sure you’re not about to start recording something important.”
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Q4: Could there be in-app onboarding or a ‘what’s new’ tooltip tour?
I got the email at noon, but I had updated hours earlier with no real context on what changed. The new UI opens to a blank chat window (no transcript), and I only discovered transcript access after hovering over a small floating toolbar. I honestly thought my library had been wiped (especially after the freezes) until I found the new UI path.
Even just a quick “here’s what’s changed” popup would go a long way in helping regular users reorient.
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Sorry for the novel! I really value what Shadow does—so I hope this is received in the spirit intended. It’s all solved now, and I’m back up and running. But if it helps shape future upgrade UX, even better.
Thanks again for all you’re building!!
—Steven
Jay Song
Hey Steve!
Thank you for being one of the most supportive users of Shadow — I can genuinely feel it in the posts you’ve shared here.
I’m really sorry for the trouble you went through today. It was entirely our oversight not to consider disk space checks before releasing the update.
Same goes for the Q2–Q4 transition. We should have added buffers, clear warnings, and proper guides — like some apps do — to make these bigger changes less disruptive for existing users, especially folks like you who are building this together with us.
I’m completely with you. At the same time, I also want to be honest — some of the missing pieces come down to us being a small, early-stage startup. It’s not an excuse, but it definitely played a role.
Your thoughtful feedback really helps us improve and avoid making the same mistakes again. I truly appreciate it.