Desktop app

Desktop app

The desktop app is Dossier in a window of its own, for Windows and Linux on 64-bit Intel or AMD processors. On the first launch it asks where to keep your data:

• On this computer: Dossier runs inside the app, with your data in one file on this computer. There's no server, no Docker and no password: the app signs itself in, and nothing else on the computer or the network can get in.
• On my server: the app opens a Dossier you already host, at its address, as the browser would. You sign in with your password as usual, and the data stays on the server.

File → Where to keep your data… asks again later. Switching doesn't move any data: to take it along, export it in Settings → Your data and import it on the other side.

Download and install

Open the latest release and pick a file under Assets:

• Windows: Dossier-<version>-win-x64.exe. Run it: it installs for your user only and needs no admin rights. The app isn't signed yet, so Windows SmartScreen may say "Windows protected your PC". Choose More info, then Run anyway. It can ask again for each new version.
• Ubuntu or Debian: the .deb, installed with sudo apt install ./Dossier-<version>-linux-amd64.deb.
• Any other Linux: the .AppImage. Make it runnable with chmod +x Dossier-<version>-linux-x86_64.AppImage, then open it. On Ubuntu 24.04 and later, AppArmor can stop an AppImage before it opens; use the .deb there.

SHA256SUMS.txt lists each file's checksum. To check a download, put it next to that file and run sha256sum -c SHA256SUMS.txt --ignore-missing.

There's no version for macOS yet.

Where your data is

On this computer, everything is in one folder: File → Open the data folder opens it.

• Windows: %LOCALAPPDATA%\Dossier
• Linux: ~/.config/Dossier

It holds the database (dossier.db), the key that protects your saved API keys (secrets.json), the nightly backups (files/backups/) and the server's log (logs/). Uninstalling the app leaves this folder alone.

Updating

When a new version is out, the sidebar says so: Download opens its release page, and so does Help → Download the latest version. Download the new file and install it the same way: it goes over the old version and keeps your data. Nothing updates by itself.

After an update, the app may change the database for the new version, and keeps a copy of it from before. An older version refuses data a newer one has changed, so it can't break it.

Backups

The data is all in one place on this computer, so keep a copy somewhere else.

• Settings → Your data → Export saves everything into one file. Keep it on another disk or in your cloud storage. Importing it, here or on a server, brings everything back.
• Nightly backups in the same place write an export to the data folder's files/backups folder. They only run while the app is open: a night it was closed is made up soon after you open it.
• To copy the folder itself, quit the app first.

While the app is closed

Closing the window quits Dossier. On this computer, nothing runs while it's closed: the job agent's daily run starts when you open the app later that day, and a missed backup soon after you open it. Settings says so next to each.

Signing in your browser

On this computer there's no password, so a few things that happen in your browser need the app to sign it in first:

• Gmail and Calendar: Google doesn't allow its sign-in inside an app, so Connect Google account in Settings → Google opens it in your browser, already signed in. Your Google client's redirect address is http://127.0.0.1:47318/api/google/callback (see Connecting Gmail and Calendar). Once your browser says Connected, go back to the app and press Check again.
• Claude's command-line app and other MCP apps: when one opens its page to allow it, choose Help → Sign in my browser in the app, and the page carries on (see Connecting Claude).

The browser stays signed in until you close it. With On my server, you sign in to your server in the browser as usual.

Not there yet

• macOS.