VLEAPP v2026.4.5

VLEAPP v2026.4.5

• New: BMW NBT navigation trail points, trail summaries and trip summaries from nav/trails.sqlite and nav/trips.sqlite, with KML and timeline output. Thanks @CyberMike81.
• Ford SYNC Gen2 artifacts find their stores when VLEAPP reads the partition image with -t raw, where the stores sit at the volume root with no UserData folder.
• SQLite WAL: a shared reader for the committed state of a database and its -wal, including the previous WAL generation and an uncommitted tail, now vendored from sqlite-wal v0.1.0. is_sqlite_sidecar replaces the hand-written sidecar filters in three modules.
• Reading acquisitions with -t raw: NTFS, ReFS, exFAT and FAT names now match whatever their case on macOS and Linux, as they already did on Windows, and a file two patterns of one artifact match is handed to it once. The raw input guide says which patterns miss on a bare partition image.
• Profiles: the example profile is fixed, and a profile that names a missing artifact now says so.
• Reports keep a module's own HTML rows when the artifact has a media column. New tests guard icons, categories, KML columns and artifact metadata.
• validate_sample_data.py --emit reads disk images.

New Contributors

• @CyberMike81 made their first contribution in #403

Full Changelog: v2026.4.4...v2026.4.5

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Which file to download

Platform	File
Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit Intel or AMD	-windows-x64-portable.zip
Windows 11 on ARM	-windows-arm64-portable.zip
macOS, Apple silicon	-macos-arm64.dmg
macOS, Intel	-macos-x64.dmg
Linux, 64-bit Intel or AMD	-linux-x64.AppImage
Linux on ARM	-linux-arm64.AppImage

Every download holds one program, vleapp. Started without arguments, from the
Applications folder or a double-click, it opens the window. Given arguments in a terminal,
it is the command line. On macOS the command line is inside the app:

/Applications/VLEAPP.app/Contents/MacOS/vleapp --help

For tools that run VLEAPP themselves. The options, output and exit codes of vleapp
are those of earlier releases, but there is no vleappGUI any more, since vleapp
without arguments opens the window. On Windows the zip holds the whole program as one
file, vleapp.exe, which can be put wherever the tool expects it; there is no installer.
The executable inside the macOS app needs the folder it came in; on Linux the AppImage is
the whole program.

vleapp.exe on Windows unpacks itself to a temporary folder each time it starts, so it
takes a few seconds to start, and it does not run where a policy (AppLocker, WDAC) forbids
running programs from the temporary folder. There, run VLEAPP from source; the README has
the steps.

First launch

The macOS disk images are signed with a Developer ID and notarised by Apple, so they open
without a warning.

The Windows binaries are not signed yet, so SmartScreen says "Windows protected your PC"
the first time. Choose More info, then Run anyway.

On Linux, make the AppImage executable once (chmod +x VLEAPP-*.AppImage). It needs FUSE
to start; where FUSE is not available, run it with --appimage-extract-and-run.

If you would rather not clear a warning, run from source instead; the README has the steps.

Verify what you downloaded

SHA256SUMS.txt covers every file in this release. On macOS or Linux, from the folder you
downloaded into:

grep <the file you downloaded> SHA256SUMS.txt | shasum -a 256 -c -

Use sha256sum in place of shasum -a 256 on Linux. On Windows, in PowerShell:

(Get-FileHash -Algorithm SHA256 .\<the file you downloaded>).Hash

and compare it with the line in SHA256SUMS.txt, which is lower case.

Linux

The build is made on Ubuntu 22.04, so it needs glibc 2.35 or newer and will not start on
an older distribution.

Code signing policy

The code signing policy covers
Windows signing, team roles and privacy.