Grok Bot 0.71.2: Bigger Files, Smarter Notifications

James Turner

Last time, I told you the official Grok Bot changelog stopped at 0.70.2, and that 0.71.2 only existed as forum chatter about Windows 11 tool problems. Well, that gap is closed. xAI published the official 0.71.2 notes on October 14, 2026, and they roll in 0.71.0 and 0.71.1 too. This episode is brought to you by Jellypod AI.

James Turner

The headline xAI chose is smarter notifications and larger file attachments. But the detail I find most useful is tiny. Bots can now send from a tagged form of their email address, like name plus shop at. And a routine tied to that tag runs only for mail sent to that tag.

James Turner

Think about what that does. A Bot can claim its own address as of 0.70.2. Until now, everything landing there was one stream. With tags, you could give one Bot a tag for receipts and another for invoices, and each routine fires only for its own mail. Say you set up a finance plus receipts address. Vendors send PDFs there, and only the receipts routine wakes up. That's my example, not xAI's, but it's exactly the segregation the feature allows.

James Turner

Now the numbers, because this release is full of limits that moved. You can attach files up to 250 MB, and videos up to 1 GB. If a video is too large for the Bot to watch, it tells you. One message can now carry up to 20 attachments instead of 6, and there's a notice telling you how many weren't added once you pass the 200 MB total. Those distinct figures matter. 250 MB is per file, 1 GB is for video, and 200 MB is the total for a message. And the notes say the file size and desktop notification changes both require Grok Bot 0.70.2 or later, so update first.

James Turner

The second big number is skills. Bots can use up to 200 skills from your installed plugins, instead of 24. That's a bit more than eight times the room. The practical point is in the note itself: skills from plugins you add are no longer left out. If you installed a plugin and your Bot acted like it didn't exist, a cap like this could have been part of the story. I'd go check any plugin you installed recently.

James Turner

Notifications got smarter too. While you're using Grok Bot on a Mac or Windows PC, replies and questions notify you there, instead of on your phone. If you've ever had a Bot buzz your pocket while you were staring at the desktop app, that's the fix.

James Turner

Voice calls got more resilient. If a voice chat's connection drops, the call reconnects and continues the same conversation instead of ending. And a voice call from your phone wakes the Bot's sleeping computer, so the Bot can work with what you said after the call. So you can ramble out a task on a walk, hang up, and the Bot has a machine ready to act.

James Turner

One adjacent note, and I'll flag it as adjacent. On the same day, the xAI API release notes say grok-voice-3.0 became available for Speech to Speech at the same price as Grok Voice 2.0, and the older model is deprecated. The Grok Bot notes don't say Bot calls run on it, so I won't claim that. But it's a good sign for voice overall.

James Turner

Let's talk about what happens when things go wrong, because this release is heavy on fixes. When a Bot's computer runs low on disk, the Bot tells you once, names the biggest files, and deletes them only if you agree. That's the right design. It surfaces the problem without letting an agent clean house on its own.

James Turner

Sleep handling got a lot of attention. Clicking the Computer is asleep preview now wakes it in place, replacing the separate Wake button. Grok Bot opens while the computer is still starting, instead of sitting behind a full window setup screen. Images a Bot creates or captures, and files from cloud agents it started, load in the chat while its computer is asleep. So you can look at results without waking the machine just to see them. And if the computer fails to wake, the Bot now says it couldn't start, instead of retrying as if it were still starting up.

James Turner

On the local side, when your computer sleeps, Bots treat it as disconnected within two minutes and say so right away, instead of waiting for commands to time out. After a Wi Fi, VPN, or other network change, Bots can run tasks on your computer right away. Commands keep going through brief connection stalls. And background jobs a Bot starts on your Mac, such as a local server, keep running after the command returns. If work is meant for one of your computers that's offline, the Bot tells you instead of quietly running it on another computer.

James Turner

Another good one: Stop now also ends a Bot's background subagents. Their results no longer wake the Bot afterward, and their pending approval cards expire. If you've ever hit Stop and then watched something resurface later, that's what this addresses.

James Turner

For connected tools, Bots can archive, move, delete, flag, or mark many Outlook messages as read or unread in one step instead of one at a time. Bot searches on X with date limits, minimum likes or reposts, or filters X doesn't support now return posts instead of being rejected. Connector calls wait up to two minutes for a reply, instead of timing out after one minute. And at checkout, Bots use card details or photos you send in chat, asking only for missing fields or a verification code in a Secure Form.

James Turner

Forms also get friendlier. A form a Bot asks you to fill in can arrive with known fields already filled, and you can edit them before you submit. Secure Form also fills fields on more websites, including inside embedded frames from other sites.

James Turner

If you run a team, there are two controls. Team admins can turn off Messaging between Bots under Bot capabilities on the dashboard, so members' Bots can't message or hand work to other Bots. And Enterprise team admins can recreate, terminate, or delete members' Grok Bot computers from Manage Bot Computers on the dashboard, or through the Admin API. Those are labeled Teams and Enterprise, so they apply to those plans only.

James Turner

There's also a small account note. While a paid account merge is still moving data, Settings shows Your accounts are being merged, with Contact Support if it runs long. And merges where both accounts have files on the Bot's computer now finish, keeping both sets and adding from transferred account to clashing file names.

James Turner

So how do you use this? First, update to at least 0.70.2 so the notification and attachment changes apply. Second, try a tagged address for one routine, like receipts, and watch whether only that mail triggers it. Third, if you review video, try a cut up to 1 GB, and know the Bot will tell you if it's too large to watch. Fourth, recheck any plugin that seemed to be missing skills. Last, if you manage a team, decide whether Bots should be able to hand work to each other.

James Turner

That's 0.71.2. Not flashy, but a lot of limits moved, and a lot of rough edges got sanded down. See you next time.