Updates & renewals

The mental model worth holding:

• Your license is a 12-month update window, not a 12-month runtime.
• Anything released within the window is yours forever, even after the license expires.
• Updates released after expiry require a renewal to install, but your existing version keeps running.
• Nothing about your data, recordings, or detection changes when a license lapses. The update menu just goes quiet.
• Trials are the exception. When a 30-day trial runs out, Frigate stops and the app blocks behind a buy-or-quit modal — there’s no “lapse and keep running” path the way paid licenses have. See After the trial expires.

How update checks work

A few facts so you can build a real model of it:

• Once a day, Fregata fetches a tiny signed manifest from the licensing server. The manifest is ~1 KB of JSON — version, hash of the next DMG, and the minimum license-window date that version requires. It’s signed with Ed25519; the public key is embedded in the app, so a malicious response can’t smuggle a fake version.
• If a newer version exists and your license covers it, the tray surfaces Update available: v<X.Y.Z>.
• Updates are not auto-installed. You decide when. Click the menu item to open the download window.
• There’s no Sparkle, no auto-launching installer, no third-party update framework. We didn’t want a “Fregata is restarting” pop-up at 3 AM in the middle of an active event.

When your license won’t cover a new release

If a version was released after your license expired, the tray shows a yellow indicator instead of the standard update item. The update window says something like:

Fregata 1.4.0 was released on 2026-08-12. Your license covers updates released up to 2026-06-15. Renew for $10 to install this update; your current version keeps running either way.

Renewing extends your update window forward by 12 months from the date you renew, not from the date your license lapsed. So a 30-day gap between expiry and renewal isn’t 30 days you “lose” — it just shifts the next year forward by a month.

Renewing

Two ways:

1. Click “Renew” in the update window. It opens fregata.app/renew pre-filled with your license email and key. Pay $10, return to the app, the new expiry shows up on the next heartbeat (within ~6 hours, usually minutes).
2. From the marketing site. Go to fregata.app/manage-license, sign in with your license email, click Renew.

Refunds

The marketing site states a 14-day no-questions refund window from the date of purchase. If you want a refund, reply to the license email — there’s no support-ticket bureaucracy.

What if I never want updates?

Skip them. Don’t click. Fregata never prompts more than once a day, the prompt is a single tray menu item, and there’s no nag-screen. Your existing install runs forever.

If you want the menu to stop checking entirely, there’s currently no “don’t check” toggle — the daily manifest fetch is also how the app decides whether your license is still valid (the same endpoint serves both). Setting FREGATA_TELEMETRY_DISABLED=1 opts you out of the analytics block in the heartbeat, but the heartbeat itself is required. If you’ve truly air-gapped the Mac, see Running offline.

Keeping multiple Macs current

A license binds to one Mac. If you want Fregata on two, you have three options:

• One license, take turns. Use the license-management page to release the binding when you switch machines. Three transfers per 30 days.
• Two licenses. Buy a second one. Same email is fine; the manage-license page will show both cards.
• Volume licensing for businesses or households with several Macs — reply to your license email.

Note

On a renewal, only the expiry date changes. The license key is the same string; you don’t re-enter it, the app picks up the new expiry automatically.