diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS
index 65ba0f1b9426244d3b8720b0166a469148012f60..7d10e5ecea3adc3dfd61e839dbd81f11adf7499f 100644
--- a/NEWS
+++ b/NEWS
@@ -1,18 +1,23 @@
-phosh 0.49~rc1
---------------
+phosh 0.49.0
+------------
 Released August 2025
 * upcoming-events: Allow to exclude days without events
 * Use phrosh portal when available
 * overview: Don't let search entry take the whole width
+* Improve media widget's cover art thumbnails
+* Improve keypad and search bar style
 * Cellbroadcast related fixes
 * Add searchd
 * Issues fixed:
-    * https://gitlab.gnome.org/World/Phosh/phosh/-/issues/703
-    * https://gitlab.gnome.org/World/Phosh/phosh/-/issues/290
     * https://gitlab.gnome.org/World/Phosh/phosh/-/issues/1242
+    * https://gitlab.gnome.org/World/Phosh/phosh/-/issues/1245    
+    * https://gitlab.gnome.org/World/Phosh/phosh/-/issues/290
+    * https://gitlab.gnome.org/World/Phosh/phosh/-/issues/703
 * Contributors:
+    * Achill Gilgenast
     * Arun Mani J
     * Evangelos Ribeiro Tzaras
+    * Gotam Gorabh
     * Guido Günther
     * hustlerone
     * Rudra Pratap Singh
@@ -21,11 +26,12 @@ Released August 2025
     * Anders Jonsson (sv)
     * Antonio Marin (ro)
     * Artur S0 (ru)
+    * Danial Behzadi (fa)
     * Ekaterine Papava (ka)
     * Juliano de Souza Camargo (pt_BR)
     * Martin (sl)
-    * twlvnn kraftwerk (bg)
     * Yuri Chornoivan (uk)
+    * twlvnn kraftwerk (bg)    
 
 phosh 0.48.0
 ------------
diff --git a/debian/changelog b/debian/changelog
index 2338ad21848e1a17821fa9dfde230a6539cc27d3..e13353087028328b5dbb3a6812badb6a3d59d557 100644
--- a/debian/changelog
+++ b/debian/changelog
@@ -1,3 +1,82 @@
+phosh (0.49.0) experimental; urgency=medium
+
+  [ Guido Günther ]
+  * search: Link statically.
+    Otherwise searchd would require an additional shared
+    library.
+  * search: Don't install library.
+    We don't want to ship another shared library
+  * searchd: Honor meson option.
+    Just having an option isn't enough, we also need
+    to take it into account.
+    Fixes: 4c58fc4fb ("searchd: Add deamon to gather search results")
+  * media-player: Load file icon as pixbuf.
+    This will allow us to tweak it if needed. It also
+    makes the read async.
+  * media-player: Add setter for image
+  * media-player: Better handle non square icons.
+    The thumbnail provided by Firefox for e.g. youtube isn't
+    square. Gtk-3 top aligns the thumbnail making it look odd,
+    center the thumbnail to make it look better.
+  * media-player: Round corners of album art.
+    We round corners via cairo in
+    https://gitlab.gnome.org/World/Phosh/phoc/-/merge_requests/704
+    and can thus move the logic over here too. This can be dropped
+    when we switch to Gtk-4 as it can handle that for us.
+    Helps: https://gitlab.gnome.org/World/Phosh/phosh/-/issues/697
+  * treewide: Use `-` instead of `_` for swapped-object-signal
+  * abi: Allow to access phosh_shell_get_type()
+    Plugins should be able to perform type checks.
+  * pomodoro-quick-setting: Allow to start timer on screen unlock.
+    Otherwise it is easy to forget to turn it on.
+  * pomodoro-quick-setting: Start on login.
+    For the user this isn't easily distinguishable from a regular unlock.
+    Since the top-panel can be recreated we use a global variable.
+  * phosh-pomodoro-quick-setting-prefs: Shorten key names.
+    They're only used in this compilation unit
+  * phosh-pomodoro-quick-setting-prefs: Allow to set 'start-on-unlock'
+  * upcoming-events: Use custom icons.
+    We indicate empty vs non-empty rows rather than suggesting
+    a sorting order.
+    Closes: https://gitlab.gnome.org/World/Phosh/phosh/-/issues/1245
+  * libphosh: Add explicit dependency on generated headers.
+
+  [ Yuri Chornoivan ]
+  * Update Ukrainian translation
+
+  [ Ekaterine Papava ]
+  * Update Georgian translation
+
+  [ Antonio Marin ]
+  * Update Romanian translation
+
+  [ Martin ]
+  * Update Slovenian translation
+
+  [ Achill Gilgenast ]
+  * phosh-keypad: Use alpha when focused.
+    Follow-Up from https://gitlab.gnome.org/World/Phosh/phosh/-/merge_requests/1250
+  * phosh-search-bar: Use alpha background color.
+    Doesn't look so out of place in the overview
+
+  [ Artur S0 ]
+  * Update Russian translation
+
+  [ Danial Behzadi ]
+  * Update Persian translation
+
+  [ Juliano de Souza Camargo ]
+  * Update Brazilian Portuguese translation
+
+  [ Anders Jonsson ]
+  * Update Swedish translation
+
+  [ Gotam Gorabh ]
+  * searchd: Fix crash by passing GStrv instead of GVariant to subsearch.
+    Fixes: 4c58fc4f ("searchd: Add deamon to gather search results")
+
+ -- Guido Günther <agx@sigxcpu.org>  Fri, 15 Aug 2025 10:12:52 +0200
+
 phosh (0.49~rc1) experimental; urgency=medium
 
   [ Arun Mani J ]
diff --git a/meson.build b/meson.build
index 81caf88a8df841fdd81faa91ff8b89dc48bd74ac..1f6a65ed969485276b1cd0d891b447cff0eb9f4f 100644
--- a/meson.build
+++ b/meson.build
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 project(
   'phosh',
   'c',
-  version: '0.49.rc1',
+  version: '0.49.0',
   license: 'GPL-3.0-or-later',
   meson_version: '>= 1.2.0',
   default_options: [