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Files.com Desktop App

Extends your Mac or Windows PC with a Files.com drive so you can open and save files in any app.

Desktop App


Your new Files.com drive will show up in the Mac Finder or Windows File Explorer just like a local volume. You'll get a new Files.com icon that you can click to monitor your connections and status in the Mac menu bar / Windows system tray.

Installation Instructions

Sign in to your Account

For each account you'd like to connect, perform the following steps:

Step 1

Click the Files.com pinwheel icon (in your Mac menu bar or Windows system tray) and select the "Sign In To Account" menu option.

Step 2

In the newly opened web browser window, enter the login details for the Files.com user account with which you would like to connect (just as you would when logging into the web app).

Step 3

After you've logged in, you'll see a success message in the browser, followed shortly thereafter by a desktop notification informing you that the volume is mounted.

Step 4

Close the browser window that was triggered by the desktop app and begin using the desktop app.

Troubleshooting Issues

First, make sure that your user has the proper permissions to use the Desktop app. This is enabled by default for most sites (though Site Administrators can turn this off).

If you're unable to log in, you may need to contact your Files.com site administrator, and request that they enable access through the web app's settings (Settings > Users > Edit > Privileges > Protocol access).

The Files.com desktop app exclusively uses port 443 (HTTPS) for outbound communication, and should operate behind most corporate firewalls.

If your files are not uploading to Files.com when you are online without any network issues, it is possible that the user doesn't have write permissions on that corresponding folder. You may see an error message such as "The operation can't be completed because an unexpected error occurred (error code 0)" when you are trying to create files or folders if the user doesn't have enough permissions on that folder.

Connect / Disconnect

Connecting to the desktop app

Once you've signed in, an account will immediately connect, and will automatically connect again every time the app is restarted.

A successfully connected account will be designated by a green icon, and a failed connection will show a yellow indicator.

You can use an account's context menu to manually disconnect that account, after which it will no longer attempt to connect until you've manually connected using this same context menu.

Disconnecting from the desktop app.

A disconnected account will remain an authenticated bookmark that's ready to reconnect on command.

Delete Account

Deleting account from the desktop app

You can also delete an account from that account's context menu. This will completely remove the bookmarked account along with its credentials (that is, the account's associated desktop app API key).

Of course, you can always sign in to that account again and reconnect at anytime.

Show

Showing account in finder in desktop application.

You can select Show in Finder (Mac) / Show (Windows) from an account's context menu to quickly view that mounted volume in the Finder (Mac) / File Explorer (Windows).

Expired Credentials

If an account has expired credentials, you will be required to sign in to that account (through the desktop app) again before reconnecting. Credentials may expire for a number of reasons, including:

  • The Desktop session was manually revoked by you or a site administrator via the web app.
  • The Desktop session lifetime that's set for your Files.com site has lapsed (defaults to 30 days, unless modified by a site admin).
  • Your Files.com site has Desktop Session IP Pinning enabled, requiring you to sign in again if your IP address changes while already signed in to the desktop app.

Administrators can change the above settings from Settings > Users > User Settings.

File Management

You can manage your Files.com documents from the Finder (Mac) / File Explorer (Windows), just as you would any other file or folder that is already on your local machine. Create, open, edit, delete, or move files and folders. You can even drag and drop them from your mounted volume to another folder on your local machine, and vice versa.

You can only access the mounted volume or files when a connection is possible to the server. You can not access the mounted volume or files if you are offline.

Whenever you make a change to files and folders on your mounted volume, the Files.com desktop app will push those updates to Files.com, keeping your local volume in sync with the remote server. Note that to create or modify a file within a folder, the user must have write permissions on that folder.

If your use case involves syncing files to a local machine, we recommend using the Files.com Command Line Interface (CLI) App for this.

Preferences

There are 5 categories of preferences you can set for the Desktop App.

Click on the Files.com icon in the menu bar (Mac) / system tray (Windows), and select Preferences.

Accessing preferences from the desktop app

Here you'll find five tabbed categories, including:

Bandwidth

Bandwidth options in the desktop app

Limit the amount of bandwidth that can be used for downloading and uploading files. This setting may be useful if you find that other apps are suffering from reduced performance while transferring large files.

Notifications

Files.com desktop notifications

Depending on which notifications you want, you can enable or disable notifications for certain events. If the notification setting is enabled for any event such as Upload complete, you will see a notification on your screen when files are uploaded etc. Note that, the notifications should also be enabled at your corresponding Operating System settings or notifications preferences.

Update

Updating the Files.com Desktop app

From the dropdown, you can choose which build you'd like to update to. In general, we recommend that users stick to the default, "Release" build, for a more reliable experience. Although if there's a specific feature or bug fix that you're waiting for, it can be useful to temporarily update to an experimental build (with the knowledge that this build may or may not be stable).

After the correct build is selected, you can use the "Check for Update Now" button to manually check for — and download — the latest version of that build.

With the "Automatically check for updates" option enabled, you'll automatically receive an alert when a new version is available for download.

Language

Desktop app Language

Use the dropdown to change the language that's used by the desktop app interface. By default, it will use the computer system's language preference.

Login Item

Desktop app login item

This setting refers to how your Files.com desktop app is launched after you login to your Operating System. Enabling this setting will launch the desktop app automatically when you login to your PC or Mac. We recommend keeping this setting ON always.

Status Icons

Every file and folder in your mounted volume will have a status icon, indicating its status.

There are two different statuses, each with their own icon, described in the table below:

IconDescription
Icon Online Only

Online Only. The file can only be opened when a connection to your Files.com site is active. The file does not take any disk space on your computer. The file is downloaded on demand when you open it.

Icon Ignored

Ignored. The file or folder is only saved in a local temporary location and will not upload to your Files.com site. System files such as desktop.ini, Thumbs.db, .DS_Store etc. will be ignored from upload. Files with certain extensions like .tmp, .nfs, .idlk, .part, and .crdownload will also be ignored.

Default folder names such as "New Folder" (on Windows) and "untitled folder" (on Mac) will also be ignored from uploading. To avoid upload issues with default folder names, it is recommended to always rename these folders to a name of your choice.

Context Menu

Every file and folder in your mounted volume will have a Files.com context menu, with desktop-app-specific actions that you can take. There are a few ways to access this context menu:

  1. Right click or control-click on the file or folder that you'd like to take action on.
  2. Right click or control-click on empty space that's inside the current directory view in the Finder (Mac) / File Explorer (Windows).
Context Menu in the finder using the desktop app
  1. On Mac, use the Finder's toolbar to take action on the current directory view.
Context menu from the current directory view.

The context menu includes a number of different actions, as described below:

Reload

If you're on a Mac, you can select "Reload" to manually pull down any unsynced changes that might have occurred on your Files.com site since the desktop app last synced.

On Windows, with the target directory focused in the File Explorer, you can press F5 on your keyboard to pull down updates.

Copy URL

Select this to conveniently copy the URL of the folder or file, which you could then paste into a browser to access that item from the web app (assuming you're logged in).

You can also hover over "Copy URL" to view the URL.

Open URL

Select this to conveniently open the URL of the folder or file in your default web browser (assuming you're logged in).

You can also hover over "Open URL" to view the URL.

History

Recent Files history in the Files.com desktop application.

Also included in the status submenu is a "Recent Files" history view, showing the last twenty documents that the Files.com desktop app has had activity on.

Clicking on these items will reveal those documents in the Finder (Mac) / File Explorer (Windows), assuming they are documents that still exist (that is, the activity you're clicking on isn't a deletion).

Activity includes delete, create, upload, download, and sync errors. You'll notice that this activity is sometimes shown as coming from you, and at other times shown as coming from your Files.com site. Activity from you includes changes you've made to documents locally through the desktop app (which get pushed to your Files.com site). Activity from your Files.com site might include changes that another user has made, or even changes that you yourself have made through another app (such as the web app).

You can select "Clear Menu" (located beneath the "Recent Files" history view) to clear the history at anytime.

Customizing the Drive Letter on Windows

On Windows devices, you can change the drive letter that will be used by each connection on the Files.com app. Because this setting is specific to each connection (and you can have more than one connected account), you change this by going to the Edit Account option while hovering over your Files.com account via the context menu from the Windows system tray icon.

Desktop application logs

On Windows, the desktop application logs are located at C:\Users[USERNAME]\AppData\Roaming\com.files. On Mac, the logs are located at ~/Library/Logs/Files.com/files.com.log.

Troubleshooting Installation Errors

If you receive a Windows Error message referencing "0x80070643", this is a Microsoft error related to your .NET Framework installation.

Fortunately there are a couple of simple steps that normally work to resolve it:

  1. The first recommended step is to simply try rebooting your system, and then try the install again.
  2. If you still receive the same error after rebooting, download the .NET framework Repair Tool from Microsoft and run it.

One other possible cause of this error is antivirus software. When we've seen this in the past, it has been triggered by Avast antivirus software. Users have found that they can temporarily turn off Avast, complete the install, then turn Avast back on.

Uninstalling

If you're on a Windows machine, use these steps to uninstall the app:

  1. Click the Start button and enter "Files.com" in the search box (or right-click the Files.com application in the menu).
  2. Click Uninstall to uninstall the application.

If you're on a Mac, use these steps to uninstall the app:

  1. Locate the Files.com app in the Finder. Most apps are in your Applications folder, which you can open by clicking Applications in the sidebar of any Finder window.
  2. Drag the app to the Trash, or select the app and choose File > Move to Trash. If you're asked for a user name and password, enter the name and password of an administrator account on your Mac. This is probably the name and password you use to log in to your Mac.
  3. To delete the app, choose Finder > Empty Trash.

Custom Branding

Custom Branding on desktop app.

Now you can have your logo on every one of your users' desktops! Our Premier plan includes the ability to give the Files.com desktop app your own custom look.

The entire app, including the installer, mounted disk, context menu, menu bar (Mac) / system tray (Windows), and app icon use your graphics, giving your users a fully-integrated, branded experience.

To get started, contact our Customer Success team by submitting a support request, attaching your graphics (described below) to the ticket.

Graphic Requirements

Please download this photoshop template, which includes the background for the disk icon. Then prepare the following assets:

  • banner.bmp - 493×58 bitmap; used for the header of the Windows installer. Please use a white background.
  • welcome.bmp - 163×314 bitmap; used as the sidebar of the Windows installer's first step (not shown with banner.bmp). Please use a white background.
  • application@2x.png - 1024x1024, 24-bit PNG; used for the Mac app icon. Supports transparency.
  • statusbar@2x.png - 32x32, 24-bit PNG; used as the Mac menu bar icon. Please use white.
  • ConnectionProfile-DiskIcon-128px.tif - 128x128 TIFF; used as the "disk" icon for mounted drives.
  • ConnectionProfile-DiskIcon-64px.tif - 64x64 TIFF; also used as the "disk" icon for mounted drives.

Automations

The Desktop App is a powerful part of the Files.com platform, but it should not be used as part of your business automations. Instead we recommend our Command Line Interface (CLI) App or our SDKs.

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