Ferail 0.3.0 — Linux joins, drag-out lands

First release with Linux downloads, and the first where dragging files out of Ferail into other apps works on macOS.

Downloads

• macOS (Apple silicon, macOS 12+): Ferail-0.3.0.dmg — signed and notarized (Developer ID).
• Linux (Ubuntu 22.04+/Debian): ferail_0.3.0-1_amd64.deb (Intel/AMD) and ferail_0.3.0-1_arm64.deb (ARM) — built and smoke-tested by CI.
• Windows 10+ (x64): Ferail-0.3.0-win-x64.zip — portable, unsigned (SmartScreen will warn; SHA-256 below).

Highlights

• Drag out of Ferail into Finder, the Desktop, or any app — with full Finder semantics (same-volume move, cross-volume copy, ⌥/⌘/⌃ modifiers, Esc cancels).
• Linux packaging: freedesktop desktop entry, hicolor icon, correct dock/taskbar identity; volumes, trash, thumbnails, icons, Open With all working. Known Linux gaps: no file copy/paste to other file managers yet, no live theme/volume change notifications, "Open with Ferail" on a folder not wired.
• Choose your terminal for "Open Terminal Here" (any emulator/app, custom args, admin mode).
• Self-cost readout in the status bar: uptime, CPU, memory, redraws-per-second.
• Fixes: folder sizes answered from cache, folders mislabelled as archives, permanent-delete discoverability, ISO-8859-1 text previews, read-only volume detection, an ARM-Linux build failure.

Full detail in CHANGELOG.md.

Verify the Windows download (unsigned): SHA-256:

451CEF7F00EF3C92D8A2B961E583AD79231DE6059CF0A7B10FCC285CF8E1F404

Ferail 0.2.2 — first Windows download

The first Ferail release with a Windows download.

Download

Ferail-0.2.2-win-x64.zip — unzip anywhere and run Ferail.exe. No installer, no admin rights. The ferail command-line tool is in cli\.

⚠️ This build is not code-signed

Windows will show "Windows protected your PC". That is SmartScreen reporting the file carries no Authenticode signature — it is not a malware detection. Click More info → Run anyway.

Verify the download instead:

Get-FileHash .\Ferail-0.2.2-win-x64.zip -Algorithm SHA256

9993AF0EF53DE617C255BF9EBBA7FF53DFB3EDDC80866FF5D969715A78F30E6B

If it matches, the file is exactly what was built here. If it doesn't, delete it. (A checksum catches a corrupted or tampered download, but unlike a signature it can't prove who built the file.)

macOS and Linux remain source builds for now.

What's in it

• Windows builds work again. A single IMFMediaEngine::SetMuted call written from a Mac on 2026-07-14 could not compile, and took the whole Windows app down with it. It sat broken for two weeks because nothing in CI ever built Windows. Fixed — the app now builds, runs, passes its tests, and screenshots on Windows.
• Windows packaging — portable ZIP with the licence notices, plus an installer with a Start Menu entry and uninstaller when Inno Setup is available.
• Fixed: the viewer's "Stay on Top" did nothing on Windows. The toggle never reached the OS.
• Fixed: a fresh git clone could not build on any platform — the workspace manifest referenced checkouts that only existed on one machine.
• The shipped binary carries no GPL-3.0 code. A non-optional gpui → sum_tree → ztracing edge pulled GPL-3.0-or-later crates into every build, which is incompatible with distributing a binary under MIT/Apache-2.0. Ferail now vendors that one Apache-2.0 crate with the edge removed.

No user-visible macOS changes.

Full detail in CHANGELOG.md.

Ferail 0.2.1

Superseded — the 0.2.1 download was withdrawn. Get 0.2.2, which carries both the macOS and Windows builds. The 0.2.1 DMG was built from a workspace that patched gpui to a local checkout, so it was not reproducible from a clean clone, and its bundled notices predate the GPL-3.0 severance. The fix below is still in 0.2.2.

• Fixed: the 0.2.0 app would not launch on a Mac without Homebrew. It quit
  immediately with a dyld "Library not loaded:
  /opt/homebrew/opt/xz/lib/liblzma.5.dylib" error. The xz/LZMA support added
  in 0.2.0 linked against whatever liblzma the build machine happened to have
  instead of bundling its own, so the app only ran on machines that already had
  Homebrew's xz installed. liblzma is now compiled into the binary, and the
  macOS packaging script refuses to build a release that references any library
  outside /usr/lib and /System.
• The macOS app bundle now carries LICENSE-MIT, LICENSE-APACHE and
  THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md in Contents/Resources/licenses.

Ferail 0.2.0

The 0.2.0 download was withdrawn. It failed to launch on Macs without Homebrew (Library not loaded: liblzma.5.dylib). Use 0.2.1 instead — the notes below still describe what landed in this version.

• Archive support (compress & extract) — right-click Extract on any
  .zip, .tar, .tar.gz/.tgz, .tar.bz2, .tar.xz, .gz, .bz2, .xz,
  or .7z, then Extract Here (into the current folder) or Extract To…
  (pick a destination). Extraction lands in place when the archive holds a
  single top-level folder, or in a new folder named after the archive
  otherwise — and it's safe against malicious archive paths (no writing outside
  the destination). Compress is now a submenu offering ZIP, 7-Zip,
  and TAR (Gzip / Bzip2 / XZ / uncompressed), powered by a new built-in
  archive engine (no more shelling out to ditto), so it works the same on
  every platform.
• New Archive dialog — "New Archive…" in the Compress menu opens a dialog to
  pick the format (ZIP / 7-Zip / TAR.GZ / TAR.BZ2 / TAR.XZ / TAR), the
  compression level (Store / Fast / Normal / Maximum), and an optional password,
  instead of taking the one-click defaults.
• Add files to a zip by dropping them in — drag files from Finder or the file
  list onto an open archive to add them in place (ZIP only; formats that can't be
  edited show no drop target). Names already in the archive are reported rather
  than silently duplicated.
• Browse inside archives — right-click a file → Open as Archive to open
  its contents (like Disk Usage): a real, sortable file list with the usual
  columns, expandable folders, and a filter box — so a 5000-file archive opens
  as one folder to drill into, not 5000 rows. Then Extract Selected
  (a selected folder brings its whole subtree) or Extract All. It works on
  anything that is an archive underneath, even without the extension —
  .docx, .xlsx, .pptx, .jar, .apk — and says so plainly when a file
  isn't one. Formats that can't be edited in place (tar, 7z) are marked
  read-only. The workbench can also be popped out into its own window (and
  docked back), like Disk Usage — handy for dragging files into an archive with
  Finder open beside it. You can also drag entries out of an archive onto a
  folder row or another Ferail window to extract them there (dragging to
  Finder itself is still to come).
• Richer 7-Zip descriptions — .7z files now show their file count, root
  folder, and whether they're encrypted in the Description column, the same way
  ZIPs already did.