Nightly 2026-10-06

Changed

• Linux builds now use Ubuntu 24.04 as their baseline so modern speech dependencies can be built. Linux downloads remain paused while packaging is verified.
• Updated the speech engine to Prismer 0.1.4 and its newer Prism, bringing upstream speech fixes to every platform. Prism is built into the application, so Windows portable copies do not need a separate Prism DLL.
• Speech no longer starts through a system voice just because no screen reader is running. On launch, if no screen reader is there, Portkey Drop asks whether to turn spoken progress messages on. That question is not spoken, No is the default, and the answer is saved. Settings, on the Speech page, can turn speech off entirely, limit it to a screen reader, or allow a voice when no screen reader is running. On Windows, speech rate and volume can be changed only when the voice in use accepts them, such as SAPI or OneCore. A screen reader keeps its own.

Nightly 2026-09-20

Fixed

• Update checks and download links now use the project's new home at Nick6489/PortkeyDrop, and the Windows installer identifies the new publisher.
• An SFTP download that reaches EOF before receiving the server's reported size now fails with an expected-versus-received byte count instead of appearing complete. Its partial file remains available for retry in the same queue entry. Resumed downloads are checked too, and files whose size is unknown remain supported.
• Repeating an upload or download command while that transfer is queued or running no longer creates another job for the same source and destination on the same connection. Retrying an older job also checks for an active copy first.
• Repeating Connect while a connection is being established no longer starts competing sessions. Each connection result now carries its own client, and a cancelled attempt's late success, failure, or authentication notice cannot replace or disrupt a newer connection.
• Backspace and the other parent-folder shortcuts now move up exactly one folder in the local file pane. A handled key event was allowed to continue into a second handler, which navigated up again. Remote navigation and the Delete and F2 commands also consume their handled key events so they cannot run twice.

Nightly 2026-09-09

Fixed

• Cancelling a transfer now also stops jobs waiting for a busy connection and interrupts folder scans and upload directory creation between operations.
• Transfer progress no longer floods the window with duplicate updates. Disconnecting an idle session also runs off the window thread, keeping keyboard commands and closing responsive when a server is slow.
• Idle transfer workers no longer keep the queue and its callbacks alive after their service is released.
• FTPS transfers and listings no longer stall on servers that wait for the transfer command before starting data TLS. Failed data TLS closes the unusable session so queued work cannot consume stale replies.
• Queueing multiple files or folders no longer freezes the window while another transfer is scanning or copying. This also applies to mixed selections and uploads.

Nightly 2026-09-03

Added

• A "Waiting to connect" cue now loops while an SFTP connection is held up waiting for your SSH agent to approve the key. Agents such as Bitwarden show that approval in a box that can open behind the Portkey Drop window with nothing to say it is there; the sound fills that gap and stops the moment the connection succeeds or fails. Give it a sound by adding a connect_waiting entry to a sound pack, and mute it in Settings like any other cue.

Fixed

• A fresh install made no sound at all. The default sound pack was written with an empty list and none of its audio, so only people upgrading from the Python version, whose old pack was carried across, heard any cues. The twenty default sounds now ship inside the program and are written out on first start, including the new "Waiting to connect" cue, which is also added to an existing default pack without touching any sound you have replaced.
• Sound cues played in mono, most audibly the connect sound. The opening fraction of a second of every cue was folded to a single channel and slightly stretched before playback settled into stereo, and the short cues carry their stereo image right at the start. Cues now play in full stereo from the first sample.

Nightly 2026-09-02

Fixed

• Backspace, Alt+Left, and Alt+Up in a file pane now go to the parent directory. Those keys were bound to a list event that never reported which key was pressed, so they did nothing in either pane. Ctrl+Up and Ctrl+[ do the same (Command+Up and Command+[ on a Mac, matching Finder).
• The exit sound was cut off as the program closed. Closing now waits for it to finish.
• Uploading a file always asked whether to replace it, even when nothing of that name was on the server. The prompt now appears only when the remote folder already has that name, matching downloads.

Nightly 2026-08-30

Fixed

• Installing an update no longer asks you to close Portkey Drop first, and no longer leaves the app sitting there with nothing happening. Setup checks whether the app is running, and it was being started while the app was still on screen. Portkey Drop now closes itself and Setup opens on its own first page, the way the portable and macOS updates already worked. Quitting for an update is also final now: the download's progress window could keep the program alive after its window had closed, which left the update waiting for a program that never went away.
• Leaving Portkey Drop while a transfer was running froze the window instead of closing it. Quitting closed the connection, and that waited for the transfer to let go of it -- on the window's own thread, so nothing repainted until the transfer finished. The connection is now closed out of the way of the window.
• Downloading a folder no longer freezes the window for the length of the transfer. The connection check behind the status bar and tray tooltip waited for the connection to be free, and a transfer holds it for as long as its work takes -- the whole listing of a folder, then each file in turn -- so the window stopped repainting and Windows offered to close it. The check no longer waits: a connection busy with a transfer is reported as connected.

Nightly 2026-08-29

Fixed

• Downloading a folder no longer hangs until the app runs out of memory when the server lists that folder (or its parent) as one of its own children, or when a directory symlink points back at a folder already being copied. Large folders are listed once and then copied; a loop in the listing is skipped rather than followed forever.

Nightly 2026-08-23

Added

• A portable copy started on a computer that also has Portkey Drop installed now offers to bring the installed copy's configuration across on first launch: a list of what to copy -- your sites, known hosts, and settings -- and, separately, your saved passwords. The installed copy is read and left exactly as it is. Passwords need the separate question because an installed copy keeps them in the computer's keyring, which a portable copy on a different machine cannot read, so without copying them into the portable copy's own encrypted vault the sites would arrive with every password blank. Both questions are asked once.
• The Modified column can show how long ago a file changed -- "3 days ago" rather than a date and time -- which is much shorter to listen to when skimming a folder. The exact stamp is still there for comparing two files; choose between them in Settings.

Fixed

• Connecting to an unknown SSH host with "Ask before trusting a new server" (the default) now shows a dialog to reject the key, accept it once, or accept it permanently, instead of refusing every new host. Reject is the default, so Enter and Escape both refuse.
• SFTP connections left idle were dropped without warning by firewalls and by servers that close quiet sessions, and you only found out when the next thing you did failed. Portkey Drop now sends a keepalive every 60 seconds so the connection keeps answering. The interval is in Settings, and 0 turns it off.
• The spoken detail setting only ever affected transfer progress announcements. It now governs how often progress is spoken as well: minimal stops progress being announced and verbose announces it twice as often. Setting the interval itself to 0 still silences progress whatever the detail level.
• The default protocol and the "use AUTH SSL" preference were saved but ignored: the quick connect bar always opened on the same protocol with the SSL box clear. It now starts from your defaults, and saving settings moves it onto whichever of the two you changed rather than resetting a protocol or port you had already typed in.

Nightly 2026-08-22

Fixed

• Starting Portkey Drop opened an empty terminal window behind it. The program was built as a console application, so Windows gave it a console whether it wanted one or not; it is now built as a windowed application and starts with nothing but its own window. --version and --help still print to the terminal you run them from.
• The update offer said "Current: 0.6.0" on a nightly build, which is the version of the release before it and the same for every nightly. It now names the running build the way About does, so you can see which nightly you are on and which one is being offered.

Nightly 2026-08-20

Added

• The Site Manager has its Browse button back for choosing a private key file, and it opens where the current path points rather than at your home folder.

Changed

• Settings, sites, and known hosts now live where each system keeps application configuration -- %APPDATA%\PortkeyDrop on Windows, Application Support on macOS, ~/.config/portkeydrop on Linux -- rather than a folder in your home directory. Everything is copied across the first time you start, and the old folder is left where it is, so an older version still works. Portable installs are unchanged and keep their data beside the program.

Fixed

• Alt+U reached both Duplicate and Username in the Site Manager, and Alt+P reached both Play and Preview in the sound pack window, so neither letter activated anything. Each access key now reaches one control.
• Accepting a host key could stop a different server from connecting. The new entry was written onto the end of the last line when the known hosts file did not end in a newline, which corrupted both; the server recorded there then looked like it had changed its key, and a changed key is refused outright. Existing files are repaired the next time a key is accepted.
• The first server in the known hosts file was not recognised if the file began with a byte order mark, as one written by some Windows editors does.
• Checking for updates on a nightly build kept offering the nightly already installed. Nightlies carry the version number of the release before them, so the app had no way to tell one from another; it now knows which nightly it is, and About names it too.

Security

• On Linux and macOS the configuration folder and the encrypted password vault were created with whatever permissions the system defaulted to, commonly leaving them readable by every account on the machine. Since the vault's key is derived from the machine and user name rather than a secret, another local user could read the file and work out its key. The folder and the vault are now owner-only, and opening the app tightens an existing install. Windows already restricted them through the user profile.