July 2026 releases // New Instagram bridge and OAuth in gomuks

This month's releases include a new Instagram bridge and various gomuks improvements, like support for next-gen auth and a better settings screen.

gomuks

Support for next-gen auth was added. To avoid constant problems with redirects that clients like Element have, gomuks will default to using device code login. For servers that don't support device code login, redirects are supported to some extent, but only on web, not the desktop or android wrappers.

Support for legacy SSO has been removed, as most servers that use an external IdP have already migrated to next-gen auth. Legacy password auth will remain supported for the forseeable future.

The settings view now has tabs for better organization and more options, including actual room settings (you don't have to use devtools to change the room name/topic anymore). You can also change user power levels in the right panel now.

Finally, polls are now rendered and can be voted on. There's also a /poll command to create new polls, but no other UI for that yet.

Bridges

New Instagram bridge

As mentioned last month, Instagram switched to a completely new protocol for DMs, which means a new Instagram bridge. The old bridge can still be used for Instagram for now, but Messenger's protocol was also changed slightly in a way that doesn't allow connecting to Instagram, which means this is the last release where the old bridge will be able to connect to both.

The new bridge is in the same repo, but is a separate binary and docker image. Docker image tags have the ig- prefix, so this release for example can be found at dock.mau.dev/mautrix/meta:ig-v26.07. Binaries are built in the same CI job, the old bridge is mautrix-meta and the new one is mautrix-instagram. If building manually, use the ./build-ig.sh script.

If you've been using the bridge with mode: instagram in the config, or if all existing logins are Instagram logins, the new bridge is a drop-in replacement and even rolling back should more or less work. However, for bridges that have both Instagram and Messenger logins active, there's no way to split them up, so you'll have to set up a new bridge and relogin manually.

WhatsApp passkeys

Last week WhatsApp temporarily enforced passkey login for a fraction of users. It appears the enforcement was a temporary trial run, or maybe they realized the UX is horrible and even their official macOS app broke. In either case, the bridge now supports login using passkeys, so it'll keep working in the event that they roll out forced passkeys again.

In the bot command login flow, passkeys are implemented by manually running JS in a browser. If you want a more user-friendly experience, mautrix-manager has built-in support for the QR passkey flow (hybrid transport/caBLE).

In other WhatsApp news, their migration from phone numbers to LIDs appears to be more or less finished, so the bridge will likely switch DMs over to LIDs on the Matrix side in the next month or two. This will show up as the other user's ghost in every DM leaving and a new LID ghost joining in its place.