Whisky

Earlier

• 3.6.1Aug 13, 2026Whisky 3.6.1 fixes a set of issues around graphics backend routing, external drives, and the bottle registry, and makes runtime downloads resumable.

  Whisky 3.6.1 fixes a set of issues around graphics backend routing, external drives, and the bottle registry, and makes runtime downloads resumable.

  • Graphics backends now apply per program instead of leaking: DLL overrides go through the prefix registry rather than the WINEDLLOVERRIDES environment variable, so a launcher's backend no longer silently becomes every game's backend, and per-program overrides actually take effect.
  • A bottle no longer appears twice in the bottle list, and each of its games with it, when its path was registered in two URL forms; an already-duplicated registry heals itself on first launch.
  • Bottles on external drives: non-APFS drives are no longer refused as "full", and the new location checks engage on every removable volume shape, disk images included.
  • The DLL Overrides section reports the overrides actually in effect, and program settings resolve Recommended to the backend that really runs.
  • Steam game routes are forgotten when their bottle is deleted, output from very short-lived Wine processes is no longer occasionally lost, and the CLI uses consistent exit codes with option passthrough for whisky run.
  • With D3DMetal installed, Recommended resolves launchers to DXVK, since their Chromium-based clients cannot render on D3DMetal, while the games they start still get D3DMetal.
  • Interrupted runtime downloads resume where they left off and retry transient failures instead of restarting from zero.
  • Pressing Play materializes settings only for the program that launches, and waiting for a cold Steam client no longer spawns a Wine process every two seconds.
  • Creating a bottle on an external or network volume checks the location up front: if macOS is withholding Files and Folders access, the creation sheet says so and links straight to the privacy settings instead of failing later with a cryptic prefix error.

  SHA-256 (Whisky-3.6.1.dmg): d3e75b2f4573fe677856ace0d6d92a24750fc4a1df4cf371fa4d0a5aa6903962

• 3.6.0Aug 4, 2026Whisky 3.6.0 is the first fully localized release, alongside a Steam games library and Game Porting Toolkit support.

  Whisky 3.6.0 is the first fully localized release, alongside a Steam games library and Game Porting Toolkit support.

  • Fully translated in 22 languages: the entire app is now localized, from Arabic to Vietnamese. Translations are managed on Crowdin; corrections and improvements from native speakers are welcome.
  • Steam games library: bottles with Steam installed show your games with live state (running, downloading, update stalled). Play brings the client up quietly, starts the game, and applies its community configuration for that launch only. Per-program settings you have tuned yourself still win.
  • Game Porting Toolkit import: point Settings at your own download of Apple's evaluation environment and the D3DMetal payload is validated, stored safely across engine updates, and deployed automatically once an engine capable of running it is installed.
  • New command line tools: whisky games lists a bottle's installed Steam games and whisky launch <appid> starts one, both with --json output.
  • Program shortcuts launch through the live pipeline instead of baking the environment in at creation time, so they pick up graphics, GameDB, and override changes. Recreate a shortcut to adopt the new behavior.
  • The sidebar's running-status probe no longer writes a log file per check (previously ~1440 stray log files per idle bottle per day) and now asks wineserver directly, off the main thread.
  • A failed bottle move rolls back cleanly instead of corrupting pin and blocklist paths and leaving the bottle stuck busy.
  • Busy bottles can no longer be mutated mid-export, mid-duplicate, or mid-move when the bottle list reloads.
  • Games installed in a Steam library are no longer mistaken for the Steam client and get their own launcher detection.
  • Two programs sharing a filename no longer share one settings file; existing settings migrate automatically.

  SHA-256 (Whisky-3.6.0.dmg): 12a7e24a9dd31879263c8d63059867c4c174cc8c8364affb4d27598f3e5b2319

• 3.5.2Jul 30, 2026Bug-fix release: fresh installs work in every locale, DirectX 11 games run on default settings, and lost bottles come back.

  Bug-fix release: fresh installs work in every locale, DirectX 11 games run on default settings, and lost bottles come back.

  • Engine install on day-first-date locales — first-run setup failed with "Archive contains unsafe path" on systems whose language formats dates day-first (UK, French, and many others). The archive safety check no longer depends on the system language.
  • DirectX 11 games on default settings — the "Recommended" graphics backend now resolves to a translation layer the installed engine actually provides (DXMT, otherwise DXVK) instead of one it doesn't ship, which silently fell back to WineD3D and broke DX11 titles on fresh installs.
  • Backend picker honesty — D3DMetal is greyed out when the installed engine doesn't include it, and bottles already configured for D3DMetal show a clear warning instead of games failing silently at launch.
  • Bottle registry resilience — a damaged bottle list is backed up and recovered instead of being silently wiped; bottle creation fails loudly if it can't be saved; creating a bottle without the engine installed points at Setup instead of a cryptic error.
  • Lost-bottle recovery — bottles on disk that aren't in your library (created by an older version, left behind by a reset registry, or restored from a backup) are detected at startup and offered for one-click re-import.
  • Safer engine extraction — archives are unpacked and their symlinks audited in a staging area; only content that passes every check reaches the destination, so a rejected archive leaves your existing installation untouched.

  Thanks to @dappermint for three of these fixes and the reports behind them.

  SHA-256: 5af79e903abac08a4755c4319029cd61d7fc58e5f6bf773a54a76159ac4de8a4