Desktop App Logs
The Files.com Desktop App writes log files on Windows and macOS recording what the app tried to do, what your operating system and your Files.com site gave back, and where it failed. They are a diagnostic trace from a single computer, not an audit trail. File Actions / History records who uploaded, downloaded, renamed, or deleted a file.
The Desktop App writes two log files to disk. desktop-v6.log records what the app itself does, including startup, sign-in, transfers, and settings changes. files-desktop-helper.log covers the background component that performs mounts and transfers, so look there for mounted drive problems rather than in desktop-v6.log. Both are JSON, one record per line.
Our Support Team needs these logs to diagnose most Desktop App problems. The Desktop App can upload them for you, or you can send the files manually, which covers what uploading does not.
Viewing Logs in the App
Show Logging, in Settings or Preferences, shows or hides a real-time log panel at the bottom of the app interface. The panel is the quickest way to check recent activity and errors without opening a file or contacting us. Open Log File, in the same place, opens desktop-v6.log directly.
Logging Levels
The Logging Level setting controls how much detail is written to the log files. The options are Info, Debug, Trace, Error, and Warning, and each level records everything the less detailed levels record.
Info is the default level, and no action is needed to use it. It records uploads, downloads, and connection events, without extra diagnostic detail.
Debug is the level our Support Team asks for most often, and it is enough for problems that reproduce consistently, like a file that always fails to upload, repeated authentication failures, or a sync that fails the same way every time. It records each operation as it starts and completes, without the steps in between.
Trace records those in-between steps, down to each socket message and each file examined while listing a folder. Use it only when our Support Team asks for it. Trace also captures continuous background activity rather than only your own actions, so the log grows fast enough to slow the app and to push the records you wanted out through rotation.
Error and Warning sit below Info, for cases where you want to further limit what's captured. These aren't useful for troubleshooting, since our Support Team needs more detail, not less.
Set the level before you reproduce the issue, because nothing recovers detail the Desktop App never wrote. Raise it to Debug or Trace only while you are actively troubleshooting, since the extra detail can slow the app down. Set it back to Info once our Support Team has what it needs.
Enabling Automatic Log Upload
You can have the Desktop App automatically send its log records to our Support Team as it writes them. Turning on Upload Debug Logs, under Logging in Settings or Preferences, starts the upload and sends new records from desktop-v6.log and files-desktop-helper.log.
If you are signed in to more than one Files.com site, the Debug Log Profile setting chooses which account the upload is sent under. It does not limit what gets sent, because the Desktop App writes one set of log files for all of your sites rather than one set per site. Choosing a profile does not start an upload. Only turning on Upload Debug Logs does that.
The uploaded records reach our Support Team and never appear anywhere on your site. Turning Upload Debug Logs off stops the upload immediately. Left on, it stops on its own after seven days. Our Support Team can also turn it on for your account without any change on your machine, and that grant expires on the same seven day schedule.
The Desktop App uploads only the records it writes after you turn the setting on, never the ones written earlier. Turning it on after a problem has already happened therefore sends nothing about that problem. It also does not change how much detail those records carry, so set the Logging Level and turn on Upload Debug Logs before you reproduce the issue.
Sending Log Files Manually
Sending log files automatically is the better option, because the Desktop App does the collecting and sending for you. In cases when you need to send the log files manually, zip the whole v6 folder and send it to our Support Team.
Both log files are in this folder:
Windows: %UserProfile%\AppData\Roaming\Files.com\v6\
macOS: ~/Library/Logs/Files.com/v6/
Each file rotates at 25 MB and keeps five archived copies, all inside that folder. Collect the logs as soon as you reproduce the issue.
If you encounter issues accessing files through a third-party application like Adobe, Microsoft Office, or AutoCAD, collect the relevant logs, screenshots, and version information from that application and send them to our Support Team along with the logs from the Desktop App.
In rare cases a problem sits below what these two logs capture, including Windows File Explorer hangs, file copies that fail without an error, and right-click menu or icon overlay problems. These need diagnostics that stay off by default, so contact our Support Team for the steps to turn them on, then reproduce the issue with them running.