Status Update – May 2025

Hey everyone,

Welcome to the May 2025 Status Update – yes, we know it’s already June 2nd. We had originally planned to share this a few days earlier, but with so many moving parts across development, testing, and internal planning, we had to take a bit of extra time to make sure everything was up to date and worth your while.

Plenty to cover—so let’s dive in.

📖 Table of Contents

• Mobile App Update
• Filen Hub
• Rust SDK
• CLI Improvements
• Filen in "Ruhr" Cybersecurity Community
• We are (Going to Be) Hiring: Front-End Dev
• Scaling, Marketing & Affiliate Program
• Lifetime Plans & Black Friday
• Final Word – TL;DR

Mobile App Update

Development continues at a steady pace. The core functionality is now fully implemented and thoroughly tested.

One exciting detail we haven't explicitly announced yet: alongside our powerful new video streaming capabilities and improved automatic camera uploads, we've also developed a brand-new audio player. You can now stream music and audiobooks in the background, create playlists, and enjoy unlimited audio playback, all without using up your local storage. This unlocks exciting possibilities for casual listeners as well as professionals in music production or videography who want to integrate Filen into their workflow. We understand everyone's eager for specifics, especially an ETA, but while we can’t yet give precise dates, rest assured the first beta release is now very close. Stay tuned!

Filen Hub

After our last post, some of you have already explored the new Filen Hub, even though it isn’t yet integrated into our main website (no redirect is set up).

It’s still somewhat hidden as we continue to evolve our vision. Frequent layout changes make it less user-friendly, so we’re intentionally holding off on full integration into the main website. Currently, our developers are juggling multiple priorities, so we appreciate your patience.

Here’s an oddly specific look at the technical side of the new Filen Hub:
(feel free to skip to the next section if this isn’t your thing)

The Hub has already gone through several iterations. Beyond integrating the newsletter and general settings, we’ve stayed true to our goal of making it more focused on knowledge and information culture, as we mentioned in our last update. At the core of this redesign is the Ghost theme “Ease,” which is typically used for help centers and behaves a bit more delicately than classic blog themes like "Casper" (the current one on blog.filen.io).

Our idea was to merge the best of both worlds: the front page design of the Ease theme combined with subpages modeled after the layout of our previous blogs front page, which used Casper.

Here are some of the changes made to the Theme:

• Dark mode
• Gradient background using our brand colors
• Transparent navigation bar
• Dark-themed search bar
• Thumbnail previews for categories
• Adjusted padding and layout for better structure

For the category subpages, we adapted elements from the Casper theme (most of it is custom build with inspiration from casper):

• Removed the original layout
• Removed pagination in favor of unlimited scrolling
• Larger thumbnails and previews with hover effects
• Visible release dates on posts
• Prominent feature images at the top of the page
• Improved mobile responsiveness

Once everything is officially launched, we'll actively seek your feedback through surveys to refine the Hub further.

Rust SDK

Great progress on our Rust SDK this month! The core functionality is stable, and the next major step is integration with our new mobile apps, starting with Android. Merging these two components is challenging, but we’re now approaching a major milestone: a fully functioning vertical slice demonstrating this integration at every level. If all goes well, we expect this to be ready within the next few weeks.

CLI Improvements

The CLI refactoring project made significant strides this month. We’ve enhanced internal documentation, ensuring relevant information is consistently available within the CLI itself. We've also improved how forced updates are handled to streamline your experience. We’re currently addressing inconsistencies across our three documentation sources (inapp, repository docs, and README). Expect future updates to have a simplified structure, reducing redundant information and making maintenance easier, especially for community contributors.

Filen in "Ruhr" Cybersecurity Community

Last week, one of our co-founders attended the ITS founders' meeting hosted for the second time by Edgeless Systems. We continue to engage actively in our local cybersecurity scene, particularly in the Ruhr region. This event strengthened our connections with Bochum's Ruhr University and other cybersecurity firms. Look out for us at future events, such as the IT-Sicherheitstage in Gelsenkirchen or the IT.Connect in Bochum. Feel free to say hello if you spot us!

We are (Going to Be) Hiring: Front-End Dev

As our internal roadmap continues to expand well into next year, we’re looking ahead to carefully grow our front-end capabilities. Although we don’t have immediate openings for full-time positions, we'll soon be considering internships, student roles, or part-time positions, from which we've previously hired team members. Keep an eye on the Filen Hub and job boards for upcoming details!

Scaling, Marketing & Affiliate Program

Even though our primary focus remains on product development, such as the mobile app rework, CLI improvements, RClone, and the Rust SDK—we also need to discuss scaling Filen’s user base.

If it were solely up to us and our development team, we’d happily spend all our time building technically complex and exciting features. Tools like WebDAV and RClone are great examples, highly valued by many, but mostly relevant to a more technical niche. That’s why we’re about to enter a focused marketing test phase: to reach a broader audience and, in doing so, gradually generate the resources we need to keep building at the pace we envision, whether that means expanding the team, upgrading infrastructure, or accelerating feature development.

After completing the current projects, we’ll initiate a limited, targeted scaling period. This phase will involve testing various marketing and sales strategies with restricted resources over a clearly defined timeline. Non-development-related preparations for this period have already begun.

(Quick note: Of course, marketing and development involve different personnel. However, some preparations surrounding the test campaign will also require some resources from our development team. During the test period, the primary project for our developers will be working on our backend & API.)

Here's what you can expect next: The immediate upcoming step is launching our mobile app into closed beta once internal testing concludes. Following this, the app will move into public beta, officially launch, and undergo a post-launch phase for patches and improvements. In parallel, we plan to keep advancing other ongoing projects.

Once the mobile app release is fully wrapped up, we'll officially begin the scaling test period. This will include launching our new affiliate tool, preparing necessary infrastructure, and making minor adjustments to registration and purchasing processes. Also: None of our current marketing or sales plans will result in additional costs or unexpected upsells for you!

The scaling test period will last for a maximum of three months, primarily to gather data and insights to plan a larger campaign next year. Since most of you reading this are already users, you probably won't notice much during this period. However, projects scheduled after the mobile app may experience delays as a result.

Regarding Filen Spaces specifically, we’re preparing a significant backend upgrade to simplify and streamline development across all clients. As part of this, we’re also redesigning our current sharing system. The current plan (though still subject to change) is to introduce Filen Spaces as the sole method for file sharing—helping us reduce infrastructure complexity and ensure long-term maintainability and improvement of sharing features.

Looking at the broader picture and the long-term vision we're pursuing, it has become clear that prioritizing the development of Filen Spaces is a necessary step. They won’t just be a core part of the platform, they’ll also serve as a foundation for many future features. While we expect the bulk of the work to be completed by the end of the year, we want to be transparent: a full public launch may not happen before 2026.

Ultimately, this scaling period aims to expand our team and boost our development capacity, ensuring faster progress on all fronts in the long run. We view these “delays” as strategic investments, guaranteeing Filen becomes the best it can be in the future.

Lifetime Plans & Black Friday

As most of you know, every Black Friday we've offered significant discounts on our Lifetime Plans. However, as you may also have noticed, the availability of these plans has become increasingly limited.

We've been cautious about sharing specific information due to ongoing evaluations concerning long-term sustainability, especially considering recent developments in the U.S.

Realistically, it's somewhat counterintuitive to refrain from offering Lifetime Plans throughout the year due to long-term sustainability concerns, only to then offer them at even lower prices on Black Friday. It’s like not wearing your favorite sneakers all year to keep them spotless, only to run through mud puddles once a year, causing more damage in a week than daily wear would have done all year long.

Additionally, it’s currently uncertain if the Pro Lifetime Plans will return at all. These plans have been instrumental for our growth, allowing us to expand independently without resorting to shady tactics or external investors, and we are deeply thankful for the community's support in making this possible.

However, we’ve reached a point where future projects no longer need to (or can afford to) sustainably rely on these one-time sales alone. Financially, we’re doing fine, but continuing to offer lifetime deals indefinitely is unfortunately obviously not the most sustainable in the long term.

To be clear: there won't be a huge Lifetime sale with steep discounts this year. While it’s not finalized yet, we are currently considering offering the Pro Lifetime Plans one last time during Black Friday, alongside our usual Black Friday discounts on standard plans. Separately from all this, we want to clarify that the Starter Lifetime Plan will remain available for the time being (So no reason to panic).

We’re intentionally communicating this early to set expectations appropriately and appreciate your understanding. We will keep you updated if we make any new or further decisions on the topic!

Final Word – TL;DR

Here’s a short summary of what’s ahead:

The mobile app is nearing release, with closed and public betas coming soon, followed by launch and a brief post-launch phase. In parallel, we’re continuing work on the Rust SDK, CLI improvements, and the evolving Filen Hub.

Once the app is live, we’ll enter a 3-month scaling test phase, focusing on backend infrastructure, marketing tools like our affiliate system, and prep work for Filen Spaces. These backend upgrades lay the foundation for future features, even if Spaces itself likely won’t launch this year.

Finally, while the future of Pro Lifetime Plans remains uncertain, the Starter Lifetime Plan will stay available for now.

Thanks for being with us—we’re building this step by step, and your support makes it all possible.

– Team Filen