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Hello folks,
August has been a month full of progress across multiple areas. From mobile development to new team members, backend improvements, research partnerships, and even support automation, we are laying down important groundwork for the next stage of Filen. Let us dive deeper into what we have been up to.
Closed Mobile App Beta is live
The mobile beta officially launched this month, first on Android last Saturday and then on iOS today, Monday. With both platforms now live, the first wave of testers is already giving us valuable feedback. We are closely monitoring bug reports and usage patterns, and the team is pushing fixes rapidly. The feedback loop is exactly what we wanted: fast, iterative, and user-driven.
Now that both platforms are covered, we can start comparing performance, usability, and feature sets side by side. Our goal is to ensure "parity" between Android and iOS, while still following each platform’s native guidelines to provide the best possible user experience.
This beta is more than just a testing phase. It represents the first major step toward a modern, unified mobile experience that is powered by the Rust SDK under the hood. It is not just a facelift but the foundation for a mobile ecosystem that will evolve quickly once we reach full release.
ZoomSockets - preparing API 4.0 for the future
One of the more exciting concepts we are experimenting with right now is something we internally call "ZoomSockets." It is our nickname for a potential major change that could arrive with API 4.0. Up until now, our API has been based on traditional HTTP request and response cycles. While connections can be kept alive, every request still carries protocol overhead in the form of headers and framing. This becomes especially noticeable when syncing many small files, where the added cost of wrapping each request starts to stack up and performance takes a hit.
ZoomSockets replace this with persistent, bidirectional WebSocket connections. Instead of sending every operation as a full HTTP request, we can keep one connection open and stream data back and forth without the extra HTTP layer. The result is much lower overhead, reduced CPU usage, and a smoother experience for users across the globe. Users of DNS filtering tools like Pi hole or AdGuard, which often come with free request limits, should also notice a massively reduced number of requests made by Filen in v4. The main performance benefit is from stripping away the HTTP headers and framing, which not only gave us ~10x CPU usage improvement in server side testing but also a much decreased network usage for smaller files.
At this stage, ZoomSockets are still a proof of concept, not a production feature. Our hope is that with clever use of ZoomSockets we will see performance improvements across the board, and with tight integration into clients and other parts of our vision for v4, a significantly better experience for smaller files. This is exactly the kind of experimentation that will help us decide how broad the scope of API 4.0 should be. If included, ZoomSockets will significantly reduce one of the biggest pain points in cloud sync and help make API 4.0 architecturally ready for the future.
CLI in Rust - performance, simplicity, and stability
We are planning to move our CLI away from the old TypeScript SDK and onto the Rust SDK. The goal is a simpler, faster CLI that starts quicker, runs with fewer resources, and is less prone to bugs, while we also hope to be able to shrink the final executable size from more than 100 MiB to under 10 MiB. For power users who rely on CLI automation for syncing, backups, or integration into scripts, this will be a noticeable quality of life improvement.
Rust SDK Cleanup and Improvements, then sync engine development using that SDK
Our backend developer recently completed the mobile file and document provider extensions using the Rust SDK. His focus now is on preparing the Rust SDK so that it can support the next set of clients that will be developed on top of it, including the web app and the desktop app. This cleanup and improvement phase covers stability, performance, API surface, and developer resources such as guides and examples.
Once this groundwork is in place, work on the new sync engine will begin. The final CLI migration to the Rust SDK and the sync engine development will happen in parallel.
Planned features
- All selective sync rules will be transparent through our filenignore file (no more hidden filtering of specific files), and every rule can be overwritten by the user. On top of this, the desktop app will provide a user friendly interface for selective sync, so you can easily choose which folders to keep locally and which to keep online only.
- Use version history to decide whether a file should be overwritten, to make data loss in two way sync practically impossible
- Use the system or local folder trash rather than deleting items outright
- General efficiency and speed improvements in how directories are enumerated and compared
- Use WebSockets to subscribe to server side updates rather than repeated queries
- Clear warnings when a file is not synced for any reason, for example case conflicts
Potential features
- Virtual files and a cloud sync engine approach,
similar to how OneDrive or iCloud show placeholders for files that are not fully downloaded yet. This would allow you to see and manage all your files without using local storage until you actually open them.
We are also inviting suggestions from the community. Please share your ideas in the soon posted dedicated Reddit thread so we can gather input and feedback.
A new dedicated mobile developer joins the team
We have been searching for the right person to take ownership of our mobile apps, and we are excited to share that we found them. Contracts are signed, and onboarding starts on September 1st. Our new teammate brings deep expertise in React, React Native, Swift/kotlin and mobile development in general.
This means that, for the first time, we will have a dedicated developer whose sole responsibility is the mobile experience. Bug fixes will happen faster, feature requests can be tackled more efficiently, and the overall pace of mobile development will pick up. For our users, that means better apps and quicker updates. For our team, it frees up bandwidth so others can focus on backend, infrastructure, and SDK progress without leaving mobile behind.
Audits - starting the conversation earlier
In the past, we always said that we would begin the audit process once development had settled down, once all major rewrites were finished, and we were confident that no large parts of the codebase would be thrown out and rebuilt. Otherwise, paying for an audit only to rewrite the code afterwards would be about as useful as folding the money into paper planes and throwing them into the Rhine.
This month marks a shift in strategy. We have started real conversations with audit firms to involve them earlier, especially around API 4.0. The idea is to run initial tests and get expert insights during development, not only afterwards. This way, we avoid surprises and can build security confidence step by step. With the new mobile release close and API 4.0 following, the timing is right to prepare for certifications and external audits. You might remember that we even asked the community in a past survey which areas and partners you preferred. Those answers are proving valuable now as we enter these talks.
Rclone support - in the official milestone
For those following our Rclone progress: we have been added to the 1.71 milestone, which means that the groundwork for official Filen support is in place. At this stage we cannot give a guarantee or timeline, since the process depends on upstream maintainers and their priorities. So we hope Filen will soon be available as a backend inside Rclone, but it is not fully in our hands.
If and when this goes through, it will make Filen accessible to a wide range of advanced users who use Rclone for tasks like automated backups, scripting, or connecting multiple cloud providers. Until then we will continue to track progress and keep you updated.
Improving support experience
Our support has been heavily requested in the last months and sometimes overwhelmed, especially as our user base continues to grow. To improve the overall support experience we are working on ways to make it easier and faster for users to get help.
Many of the tickets we receive are repetitive questions that could be answered more quickly by an automated system. To help with this, we are building a "chatbot" that can handle frequently asked questions directly, freeing up our support team to focus on complex or unusual issues. The goal is to reduce wait times, improve response consistency, and make sure users can get help instantly when they need it. This will not replace human support, but it will act as an additional helper so that both users and the team benefit.
It is important to point out that our support and the "chatbot" will remain separate. You will always be able to reach out to our human support team directly without having to go through automated layers first. In the beginning the "chatbot" will not even be a real chatbot. It will work more like a dynamic FAQ with predefined answers to the most common questions, while visually looking similar to a chatbot.
Depending on how well this works and how users respond, we may in the future experiment with adding limited AI capabilities. But even then, human support will always remain available as a direct channel. The goal is to give you more options, not fewer.
Note from support:
Our support lead asked me to include this once more, since the question still comes up a lot even though we have already shared the details many times: Lifetime plans will return one last time on Black Friday. There will not be big discounts on them, and after that all Pro lifetime plans will be permanently discontinued. The Starter lifetime plan (100GB) will remain available for now without a set end date.
Research partnerships - building the future with universities
We are also exploring new collaborations with universities and research institutions, particularly through frameworks like Zenit. Many of the innovations we are working on, such as new approaches to synchronization and encryption, are not only relevant to the consumer cloud market but also of high academic interest.
By embedding this work into a research context, we can test our ideas with scientific rigor and contribute back to the broader field. The outcome we aim for is twofold: to be the first to bring certain technologies to the B2C cloud space, and to advance the global state of knowledge in distributed systems, storage, and security. It is early days, but these conversations are moving forward and we will share more as they solidify.
Fight Chat Control - privacy matters
Some of you may have already seen our latest blog post on Chat Control, where we explain why these proposals are a threat to privacy and security, not just for Filen but for every user on the internet. If you have not read it yet, please check it out here: Help us fight Chat Control. This is an important topic that goes beyond any single provider. We strongly encourage everyone to stay informed and make their voices heard.
Outlook & TL;DR
To wrap up, here is what is next on our roadmap:
- Mobile beta is now live on both Android and iOS, full release will follow.
- We are experimenting with ZoomSockets as part of planning for API 4.0, showing big improvements especially with small file sync.
- CLI migration to the Rust SDK is planned, aiming for a much smaller and faster binary.
- Rust SDK cleanup is ongoing to prepare for new clients, after which work on the new sync engine will begin.
- First talks with audit companies have started to prepare certification once API 4.0 and mobile are stable.
- We hope Filen will soon be included as a backend in Rclone 1.71, though the timeline depends on upstream maintainers.
- Improving the support experience with a dynamic FAQ system that looks like a chatbot but does not replace human support.
- Lifetime Pro plans will return one last time on Black Friday, with no big discounts. Starter lifetime remains available.
- Blog post on fighting Chat Control published, please read and share.
- Ongoing talks with universities and partners about research collaborations on sync and encryption.
As always, thank you for following along and supporting our work. We are pushing hard on multiple fronts, and the results will be worth it.
-Team Filen
