Welcome to the Matrix 1.12! It’s been just over 3 months since Matrix 1.11 introduced authenticated media, and today we’re bringing more Trust & Safety features to the ecosystem, alongside the normal clarifications and general improvements to the protocol. This release is also technically a few days late on the quarter, but it’s for good reason! Folks from across the ecosystem got together in Berlin for the Matrix Conference, and after things wrapped up we were busy following up on ideas started on site. We can’t wait to see all of these ideas materialize as MSCs, but in the meantime, back to the honorary Q3 release of the spec:

Matrix 1.12 marks the recommended date for all servers to enable their media freeze, similar to matrix.org’s back in early September 2024. Servers which haven’t yet enabled their media freeze are strongly encouraged to do so, if it makes sense for their users. Matrix 1.12 also brings some improvements and clarifications to authenticated media, and a total of 9 MSCs covering a wide range of features.

Read on for a few highlights, and the full changelog at the end of this post.