It’s been another big month at Circle with updates that make your community easier to access, more connected, and more personalized.
Let’s start with the biggest one: Circle now has a desktop app 🎉
Introducing the Circle Desktop App (Beta)
We hear this from community builders all the time:
“My members are so busy! I wish there was a way for us to stay top of mind.”
Now, you can meet your members where they are with the Circle Desktop App.
Our new desktop app pulls your community out of the browser, and makes it a part of your members’ daily routine. Like Slack, Notion, or Spotify, Circle can now live on their desktop, just a click away.
1. Your community on their desktop
Your members can keep Circle open and active all day — no tabs to find, no browser to reopen.
2. Never miss a notification
With native desktop notifications, members know the moment something happens — a new post, a DM, a tag in a thread that matters.
When they receive real-time updates where they’re already spending time, they stay more connected. They show up more. They engage when it counts and keep conversations flowing.
For community admins, it’s your signal to pay attention without needing to refresh, reload, or check your inbox.
3. One app for all your communities
If you manage multiple communities — or move between them like your members do — you’ll love how seamless this now feels.
Available in public beta today
The desktop app is in beta for communities on all plans starting today.
For the beta, we’re starting with a standard Circle-branded desktop app. Once it’s battle-tested, we plan to offer a fully custom-branded version to Circle Plus customers later this year. We hope it will be worth the wait!
Note to Windows users (May 20 / 2:00PM EST):
✅ We have now resolved the issue with Windows downloads. You can download the Circle Desktop App beta for Windows by clicking the Download beta button above.
Customers on our Basic, Professional, Business, and Enterprise plans are opted into the beta by default. If you’d like to opt out, you can disable your community from being accessible via the desktop app from Settings → General.
During the beta phase, your members will only find out about the app if you let them know. If you’re ready to test the app with your members, we suggest making a post in your community with a link to our Download page: https://circle.so/desktop-app.
Once the beta phase is complete, we’ll show a download link to members in the sidebar for communities with the app enabled, next to the download links for our iOS and Android apps. Circle will never market the app directly to your members.
Learn more about the desktop app →
Geo-coded member locations
Circle profiles now support accurate, geolocation data — moving from freeform text to a structured system that is more accurate and works across the entire platform.
Now, when someone enters their location, they choose a real place from a smart dropdown powered by autocomplete. Behind the scenes, Circle geocodes the input — so “LA” becomes “Los Angeles, CA,” — giving you clean, reliable data for targeting, filtering, and automation.
We’ve gone back and retroactively added location data on
existing profiles (where possible), so you’ll see improved targeting
results right away.
This new location data is already available in Segments and Audience Filters, and it’s coming soon to Workflows. That means you can:
Send personalized messages by city or region
Automate actions based on where someone is
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Create access automations for location-specific spaces
These location updates quietly unlock better onboarding, smarter segmentation, local connections, and more.
Learn more about geo-coded location →
“Near me” filter
With smarter location data now powering profiles, we’re introducing a new way for members to find each other:
The “Near me” filter in the Member Directory makes it easy to discover and connect with people nearby based on their saved location.
See members in the same city
Plan in-person meetups or local conversations
Build a stronger sense of connection and belonging
Saved email templates
You can now save and reuse your favorite layouts in
Email Hub, making it easier to stay on-brand and
move faster with every send.
Whether it's a newsletter,
event reminder, promotional email, or weekly update—templates help
your team stay consistent and save time.
What’s new:
Save any email as a reusable template
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Launch new campaigns from your saved templates library
Ensure consistency across your team’s messages
This update cuts down on repetitive work and helps your team ship polished broadcasts—faster and more reliably.
Other updates
Continuous scrolling for post comments: Comments now load automatically as you scroll, so you can read through the full conversation without interruptions. Plus, the comment box stays fixed in view, making it easy to jump in and share your thoughts at any time.
Push notifications dashboard (Circle Plus): Circle Plus communities can now create, schedule, and send push notifications through their branded apps. Target specific audiences with filters, and track performance with detailed send and click analytics.
Email validation at sign-up: New members' email addresses are automatically checked to ensure they're valid, helping you avoid undeliverable or fake emails and keeping your community member list clean and reliable.
Create new access groups from dropdown: You can now create a new access group directly from the dropdown menu when inviting new members, making it faster and more intuitive to manage access as you go.
Affiliate payout threshold lowered to $5: Affiliates will now have their commissions marked as Due once they reach $5, simplifying payout tracking for admins. Note: Payments still need to be marked as Paid manually, as payouts happen outside of Circle.
Improvements to AI agents:
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AI agents are now supported on iOS: Members can now create new chats with agents, interact with them, and be notified about agent welcome messages. The app also supports displaying “agent paused” notifications to admins, sent when a member requests a human help. Admins can then navigate to respective chats by tapping those notifications. Coming soon:
Support for pausing/resuming agents for admins
Showing agent info at the top of agent chats
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AI Agent import progress indicator: We’ve added a progress bar to show the status of uploaded content into your Knowledge Engine, making it easier to track large imports and know when your AI Agent is equipped with the desired information.
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Search AI Agent inbox by member name: You can now quickly find AI Agent conversations in the inbox by searching for a member’s name, making it easier to track and manage chats.
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Long conversation notification for AI Agents: Users now see a warning when a conversation is getting too long, prompting them to start a new one. This helps avoid issues with chat limits and creates a smoother experience.
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Preview, download, and edit AI Agent content: You can now manage all of your Knowledge Engine content in one place. Easily preview text, download files, and edit custom snippets for better control over the information you use to train your agents.
iOS improvements
We also shipped a few improvements to Circle’s iOS app:
AI agents are now supported on iOS!
Chat message display improvements
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Improved course lesson completion when watching full-screen videos
Performance, reliability, and UI/UX improvements
Android improvements
Plus, here are some improvements on Circle’s Android and Circle Plus branded apps:
Support for sorting posts in spaces and feeds
Search for DMs
Enhanced content creation
Updated input layout with support for @ and # tags
Support for post-truncation
Updated course file layouts
Performance, reliability, and UI/UX improvements
💌 May challenge: Share your favorite email
We're on a mission to find best-in-class community emails and we want to see yours!
Whether it’s an onboarding message, event reminder, newsletter, or offer—you’ve likely sent an email that others could learn from. Now’s your chance to learn how to transform it into a reusable template and inspire fellow community builders in the process.
🙌 How it works:
Submit your community email by June 3rd
Get likes from the community
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Win if your email has the most likes!
🏆 The winner gets:
A 2025 Circle swag box 🎁
An exclusive Community badge
A shoutout in our May roundup (sent via Email Hub!)
+50 leaderboard points
Top submissions will also be featured in our upcoming "Email That Delivers" workshop—shown to hundreds of future Circle users. Click here to save your spot.