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Hello everyone, and welcome to the combined June and July 2026 Filen status update.
The last time we spoke, the new mobile app had reached internal testing after a long migration to our Rust SDK. Since then, it has moved through beta, launched publicly on Android and iOS, and already received its first post-release improvements.
Meanwhile, we continued maintaining the current desktop client, improved the performance of its sync engine, and made faster progress than expected on the next web app and desktop client.
There has also been progress behind the scenes in our backend, marketing, and sales work.
So, let us get started.
The new Filen mobile app is live
The biggest milestone of the past two months is an obvious one: the completely rebuilt Filen mobile app is now available for Android and iOS.
Both versions were submitted at roughly the same time. The Android review was completed first, so the update reached Android users slightly earlier than iOS users. We used a staged rollout rather than making the update available automatically to everyone at once, giving us more control while monitoring stability and reviewing the first reports from real-world usage.
The app is much more than a visual redesign. It has been rebuilt around our Rust SDK, which now handles core processes such as encryption, transfers, caching, previews, file operations, and parts of the local application state.
The main improvements include:
- A completely redesigned interface and navigation structure
- Faster browsing, particularly in large folders
- Improved uploads, downloads, previews, and thumbnail loading
- More reliable automatic camera uploads and offline files
- Redesigned audio and video playback, including playlists, background audio, and picture-in-picture video
- Improved notes, chats, file sharing, search, sorting, and general file management
- Document scanning and Global Search
- New bandwidth and performance controls to reduce battery and mobile-data usage
We covered the complete feature set and more of the technical background in our standalone post, The New Filen Mobile App, so we will keep the recap shorter here.
While the technical foundation and interface have changed substantially, Filen’s privacy model has not. Files continue to be encrypted on your device before they are uploaded. Filen remains zero-knowledge, end-to-end encrypted, and open source.
The overall response to the release has been very positive. We have received a lot of encouraging feedback about the new design, improved performance, navigation, media handling, and general responsiveness. And after such a long development and migration period, seeing people use and enjoy the finished app has been extremely rewarding for the entire team. We also hope the release makes it clearer why we invested so much time in the Rust migration.
At the same time, a beta cannot reproduce every device, operating-system configuration, language, keyboard, media library, and daily workflow used by the wider community. So after release, we closely followed support requests and discussions across our community and social platforms. We collected recurring reports, compared them with our own testing, and prioritized the issues with the greatest practical impact.
This resulted in several follow-up builds shortly after launch, including the newest version 4.0.15.
Among other things, these updates addressed problems with text entry in Android dialogs. Certain keyboards and input methods, particularly those used for Japanese, Chinese, Korean, transliteration, suggestions, or swipe typing, did not behave correctly in fields such as file renaming, note titles, and playlist names.
We also fixed a crash that could occur when dragging tracks to reorder a playlist, improved stability around Android’s document provider, and corrected an issue where Android media controls could disappear after skipping several tracks in a playlist.
Further fixes and smaller improvements are already being prepared for upcoming mobile updates.
There are also some known issues that we are still actively investigating.
On some Android devices, background uploads may occasionally stop or fail to continue as expected. We know that this is still affecting some users, but we have not yet been able to identify one consistent cause across the affected devices.
Android manufacturers often handle background processes differently, which makes issues like this especially difficult to reproduce. If you experience problems with background uploads, please contact our support team and include your exact device model and Android version. The more precise information we receive, the easier it becomes for us to identify common patterns and reproduce the problem.
We are also working on an issue affecting the Filen integration in Apple’s Files app. In certain workflows, changes made to a Filen file through a third-party iOS application may not be uploaded back to Filen correctly.
Resolving this properly requires us to move from Apple’s older File Provider implementation to the newer Replicated File Provider system. This requires a full rewrite of the iOS File Provider extension and several changes to the underlying integration.
Work on that migration is already in progress. We are working to include the rewritten integration in the next mobile update.
The mobile work does not stop with this release. We will continue reviewing reports, refining the interface, improving performance, and resolving issues as they appear.
Thank you to everyone who has already sent us a clear description, screen recording, device information, or reproducible sequence of actions. Detailed reports make a major difference in how quickly we can understand and resolve a problem.
Maintenance work on the current desktop client
While the next web app and desktop client are already under development, we have not stopped maintaining the desktop client available today.
During June and July, the current client received a broader technical maintenance pass covering sync behavior, external protocols, platform compatibility, dependencies, and the release process.
We moved the client’s WebDAV and S3 server functionality away from the older TypeScript implementations and onto our native rclone integration. This gives both features a better-tested and significantly more efficient technical foundation.
The integrated network drive also received an updated rclone version and related fixes. Another edge case was addressed where closing the desktop client during an unfinished upload could cause the affected file not to be handled as expected.
On macOS, we adjusted icons and keyboard shortcuts to better match current system behavior. The embedded web interface was refreshed, and several underlying Electron and application dependencies were updated as part of the same maintenance work.
We also improved the less visible parts of releasing the desktop client. Signing certificates were renewed, and more of the build and release pipeline is now automated. Static release files and update assets are also being moved toward a proper content delivery setup, reducing the risk that a large client rollout creates unnecessary load on our own application infrastructure.
To avoid confusion, this maintenance work is not the upcoming Rust-based desktop client. It is an update to the client available today, intended to improve reliability and performance while its successor is being prepared.
Empty files are now supported everywhere
Another smaller but frequently requested improvement is now complete: with the latest Filen versions installed, empty files are supported across all platforms.
Empty, or zero-byte, files are used by many development tools, synchronization workflows, backup structures, and applications that rely on placeholder files. Although they contain no data themselves, they can still be an important part of a folder structure or automated workflow.
Support was introduced progressively as the different Filen applications and underlying components were updated. With the latest mobile, web, and desktop versions, these files can now be handled consistently throughout the Filen ecosystem.
It may not be the most visually exciting feature in this update, but it removes a long-standing limitation for technical users and helps the different Filen clients behave more consistently.
The current sync engine received a major performance pass
We want to make an important distinction here: the performance improvements and expanded testing completed during June and July apply to the sync engine used by the current desktop client.
They are not yet results from the upcoming Rust-based sync engine.
As part of a broader performance pass, we reviewed how the existing engine handles large synchronized folders and made substantial improvements to the way it processes and compares changes.
The current engine now also has a much broader automated testing environment covering more than 700 sync scenarios. These tests include unusual rename and move sequences, two-way changes, deletions, conflict situations, empty files, and other cases that are difficult to reproduce consistently through manual testing.
The test environment uses a virtual file system and backend, allowing the complete suite to run in seconds. This means changes to the engine can be checked quickly against hundreds of known scenarios rather than relying on a small number of manual tests after every modification.
The performance improvements are especially noticeable for users with very large synchronized file collections.
In one controlled test involving approximately 200,000 items, an operation that previously took around two minutes was completed in roughly two seconds after the performance work.
This does not mean every synchronization operation will become exactly sixty times faster. Smaller folders may show a much less dramatic difference, and real-world performance always depends on hardware, storage, network conditions, and the type of changes being processed.
The important part is that the existing engine now scales much better with large numbers of synchronized files. This is particularly valuable for users working with hundreds of thousands of items, where inefficient comparisons can quickly become expensive.
These improvements allow users of the current desktop client to benefit from better performance and stronger test coverage while development of the Rust-based sync engine continues separately.
The new Rust sync engine has not yet reached the same testing and benchmarking stage, so we cannot make direct performance claims about it. However, because it is being designed around the newer Rust SDK and the lessons learned from the existing engine, we hope it will eventually be able to improve on these results even further.
The next web app and desktop client are further along than expected
Development of the next web app and desktop client has continued moving forward faster than we initially expected.
As we finalize this update in early August, the new web app has reached a broadly feature-complete state. The main functionality is now in place, and the next step is a focused review of the application, its code, and the remaining user flows.
The app is feature-complete, but it is not release-ready yet. We still need to review and test it thoroughly, refine parts of the interface, and complete the remaining packaging and stabilization work before the application can move into a broader testing phase.
We reached this point earlier than expected, which is encouraging.
The updates bring together several areas we have been working on over the past year, including the Rust SDK, the new caching system, Global Search, improved file handling, and the new sync foundation.
The web app and desktop client will continue to progress in tandem, as they have historically. This allows us to develop, test, and refine the broader Filen experience consistently across both platforms.
There is still no public ETA.
We want to finish the review and internal testing first, then share the next steps once we know what is still left to do.
Backend efficiency improvements
We also completed a broader optimization pass on parts of our backend and database workloads.
Before these changes, the affected database systems were regularly operating at roughly 60 to 70 percent utilization. Following the optimization work, that figure has dropped to around 20 percent under comparable conditions.
This creates significantly more headroom for growth and reduces the amount of infrastructure work required for the same underlying operations.
The changes should also improve several user-facing processes, particularly synchronization and the indexing used for offline search. These improvements are less visible than a redesigned application, but they can have a meaningful effect on responsiveness and scalability.
Backend efficiency is especially important as the different Filen applications begin relying more heavily on shared caching, indexing, and synchronization foundations. Reducing unnecessary work at this level benefits the entire platform rather than one individual client.
We will continue monitoring the changes and their effect under real-world load.
Marketing, sales, and creator partnerships
Development remains our largest area of focus, but we are also continuing the controlled marketing and sales work discussed in previous updates.
For the next few months, a marketing and sales intern will support us with some of this work. This gives us additional capacity for research, campaign preparation, creator communication, sales-related tasks, and the many smaller operational steps required around partnerships.
We are also continuing our sponsored segments with creators on YouTube.
The early results from the latest sponsorships have been encouraging. The available performance data was positive, and the feedback in the creators’ comment sections was generally supportive as well.
After each campaign, we review what worked, what could be improved, and which additional materials could help creators explain Filen more clearly. This includes better product footage, screenshots, visual assets, and clearer explanations of features such as zero-knowledge encryption.
For now, we are still experimenting with these campaigns. We want to compare different creators, audiences, messages, and content categories rather than committing the full budget to one approach too early.
The goal is not to suddenly run the largest possible advertising campaign. We want to understand which partnerships bring users who are genuinely interested in a privacy-focused cloud platform and which formats communicate Filen accurately.
Creator partnerships are particularly useful because cloud storage and encryption often need more explanation than a banner or short advertisement can provide. A properly prepared video segment gives creators enough space to explain what Filen does, how it differs from traditional cloud storage, and why client-side encryption matters.
We are not trying to grow just for the sake of growth. Sustainable growth gives us more room to invest in development, infrastructure, and support without changing the privacy principles on which the product is built.
What happens next
Our immediate mobile focus is on the remaining post-release issues, particularly background uploads on some Android devices and the rewrite of the iOS File Provider integration.
The next web app and desktop client will move through a focused review and internal stabilization phase before broader testing begins.
Work on the new Rust-based sync engine will continue separately, while users of the current desktop client benefit from the recent performance and testing improvements.
We will also keep maintaining the products available today rather than putting every improvement on hold until the next generation is ready.
On the non-development side, we will continue evaluating our current YouTube sponsorships and use the additional marketing and sales capacity to improve how future partnerships are selected, prepared, and measured.
There is still no public release date for the next web app or desktop client. Careful review and testing remain the deciding factors.
Closing words
June and July marked an important transition for Filen.
The new mobile app moved from internal testing into the hands of the wider community, and the first post-release feedback has already resulted in concrete improvements.
At the same time, we continued strengthening the current desktop experience, improved the performance and test coverage of its sync engine, reduced unnecessary backend workloads, and reached an important milestone with the next web app.
We appreciate everyone who has tested the new app, reported an issue, shared constructive criticism, or simply remained patient while we worked through the migration.
Your feedback continues to help us improve Filen in practical ways.
Thank you for your support and your trust.
Until the next update,
-Team Filen
