• Sources: info-gnu announcement, info-gnu August 2026 archive, Phoronix report
  • Summary: Sean Whitton announced GNU Emacs 31.1 on the info-gnu list at 11:43 UTC+1 on 2026-08-24, with signed emacs-31.1 tarballs and published SHA256 and SHA512 checksums. The announcement is the primary source for the version, the date, the announcer, and the tarballs. Phoronix reports the changes as xterm-mouse-mode on by default for all compatible terminals, a new user-lisp subdirectory for configuration files, child frames on text frames, editable modes in grep and xref buffers, a review step for package changes before install or upgrade, and a newcomers-presets theme. That feature list rests on Phoronix alone, because www.gnu.org timed out twice from this environment and the etc/NEWS URL printed inside the announcement returned HTTP 404 to this fetcher.
  • Why it matters: Terminal mouse capture on by default changes selection and copy behaviour for anyone who runs Emacs over SSH or inside a multiplexer, and it is the one change existing users may want to turn off.
  • Follow-up: Confirm the 31.1 feature list against the upstream etc/NEWS file once a GNU primary source is reachable.

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