spacedrive README

The project's README from github.com/spacedriveapp/spacedrive. As one markdown file: README.md.

Spacedrive

Spacedrive

One file manager for all your devices and clouds.
Powered by a Virtual Distributed File System, complete with apps for macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS and Android

v2.spacedrive.com • Discord • Getting Started

What is Spacedrive?

Spacedrive is a cross-device data platform. Index files, emails, notes, and external sources. Search everything. Sync via P2P. Keep AI agents safe with built-in screening.

Is this a replacement for Finder or Explorer?

No. Spacedrive sits above your OS file manager and adds capabilities Finder/Explorer lack:

You still use your OS for low-level file interactions. Spacedrive adds the cross-platform, cross-device, cloud-aware, and automation-friendly layer on top.

Data Archival

Spacedrive indexes external data sources via script-based adapters: Gmail, Apple Notes, Chrome bookmarks, Obsidian, Slack, GitHub, calendar events, contacts. Each source becomes a searchable repository alongside your files.

Adapters are a folder with an adapter.toml manifest and a sync script in any language. If it reads stdin and prints lines, it works.

Shipped adapters: Gmail, Apple Notes, Chrome Bookmarks, Chrome History, Safari History, Obsidian, OpenCode, Slack, macOS Contacts, macOS Calendar, GitHub.

Spacebot

Spacedrive integrates with Spacebot, an open source AI agent runtime. Spacebot runs as an optional separate process. Spacedrive provides the data, permission, and execution layer. Spacebot provides the intelligence.

Each Spacebot instance pairs with one Spacedrive node as its home device. That node authenticates the agent, maintains the device graph, resolves permissions, and forwards operations to peer devices. Every device in your library can reach Spacebot through the paired node over P2P (Iroh/QUIC) without direct network access. One agent runtime serves your entire device fleet.

When Spacebot spawns a worker, that worker can target any device in the library. File reads, shell commands, and operations proxy through Spacedrive to the target device. Talk to the agent from your phone while work executes on a server. Read files from a NAS, run commands on a workstation, report to a laptop — all in one task.

Every operation passes through Spacedrive's permission system: which devices the agent can access, which paths are readable or writable, which operations are allowed, and which require human confirmation. The paired node resolves effective policy before forwarding. One security model, one audit surface across all devices and clouds.

File System Intelligence

Spacedrive adds intelligence to your filesystem by combining three layers:

When an agent navigates through Spacedrive, it receives the file listing, subtree context, effective permissions, and summaries. Users can explain how they organize their system. Agents can add attributed notes. Jobs generate summaries from structure and activity. The intelligence stays attached to the filesystem, not buried in temporary session memory.

Safety Screening

When enabled, every record passes through a safety pipeline before becoming searchable:

No other local data tool screens indexed content before exposing it to AI.

Architecture

The core is built on four principles:

  1. Virtual Distributed Filesystem (VDFS) — files and folders become first-class objects with rich metadata, independent of physical location. Every file gets a universal address (SdPath) that works across devices.

  2. Content Identity System — adaptive hashing (BLAKE3 with strategic sampling for large files) creates a unique fingerprint for every piece of content. Enables deduplication, redundancy tracking, and content-based operations.

  3. Transactional Actions — every file operation can be previewed before execution. See space savings, conflicts, and estimated time, then approve or cancel. Operations become durable jobs that survive network interruptions and device restarts.

  4. Leaderless Sync — peer-to-peer synchronization without central coordinators. Device-specific data uses state replication. Shared metadata uses an HLC-ordered log with deterministic conflict resolution.

The implementation is a single Rust crate with CQRS/DDD architecture. Every operation (file copy, tag create, search query) is a registered action or query with type-safe input/output that auto-generates TypeScript types for the frontend.

Component Technology
Language Rust
Async runtime Tokio
Database SQLite (SeaORM + sqlx)
P2P Iroh (QUIC, hole-punching, local discovery)
Content hashing BLAKE3
Vector search LanceDB + FastEmbed
Cloud storage OpenDAL
Cryptography Ed25519, X25519, ChaCha20-Poly1305, AES-GCM
Media FFmpeg, libheif, Pdfium, Whisper
Desktop Tauri 2
Mobile React Native + Expo
Frontend React 19, Vite, TanStack Query, Tailwind CSS v4
Design system SpaceUI (shared component library)
Type generation Specta 
spacedrive/
├── core/                  # Rust engine (CQRS/DDD)
├── apps/
│   ├── tauri/             # Desktop app (macOS, Windows, Linux)
│   ├── mobile/            # React Native (iOS, Android)
│   ├── cli/               # CLI and daemon
│   ├── server/            # Headless server
│   └── web/               # Browser client
├── packages/
│   ├── interface/         # Shared React UI
│   ├── ts-client/         # Auto-generated TypeScript client
│   ├── ui/                # Component library
│   └── assets/            # Icons, images, SVGs
├── crates/                # Standalone Rust crates (ffmpeg, crypto, etc.)
├── adapters/              # Script-based data source adapters
└── schemas/               # TOML data type schemas

Getting Started

Requires Rust 1.81+, Bun 1.3+, just, and Python 3.9+ (for adapters).

git clone https://github.com/spacedriveapp/spacedrive
cd spacedrive

just setup        # bun install + native deps + cargo config
just dev-desktop  # launch the desktop app (auto-starts daemon)
just test         # run all workspace tests

Privacy & Security

Spacedrive is local-first. Your data stays on your devices.

Optional cloud integration is available for backup and remote access, but it's never required. The cloud service runs unmodified Spacedrive core as a standard P2P device—no special privileges.

Contributing

License

FSL-1.1-ALv2 — Functional Source License, converting to Apache 2.0 after two years.

spacedrive (spacedriveapp/spacedrive)

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39.2K ·GitHub
Spacedrive
What is this?Spacedrive is a cross-platform file explorer and a cross-device data platform. It indexes files, emails, notes, and other sources, lets you search everything in one place, and syncs data across devices via peer-to-peer connections.
Is this meant to replace my OS's Finder or Explorer?No. Spacedrive sits above your OS file manager and adds a layer for cross-device search, content identity, sync, and AI-safe access instead of replacing low-level file operations.
How do I build and run Spacedrive?There's no prebuilt installer documented in the README; you build it from source, which requires Rust 1.81+, Bun 1.3+, just, and Python 3.9+ for adapters.
Is Spacedrive fully open source right now?Not in the traditional sense yet: each release is licensed under FSL-1.1-ALv2 (Functional Source License), which automatically converts to Apache 2.0 only after two years.
Which devices and operating systems does it support?It ships as native apps for macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS, and Android, all syncing through the same P2P network.
Where does my data go, and is anything tracked?Spacedrive is local-first: your data stays on your own devices unless you choose to sync, there is no telemetry, and you can self-host your own relay servers.
What is Spacebot?Spacebot is an optional, separate AI agent runtime that pairs with a Spacedrive node; Spacedrive handles data, permissions, and device routing while Spacebot provides the actual agent intelligence.
How does Spacedrive keep AI agents from accessing unsafe content?An optional safety pipeline runs a local Prompt Guard 2 classifier on indexed content, applies stricter screening to untrusted sources like email, and quarantines flagged records so they're excluded from AI agent queries.
What is the Data Archival feature?It lets Spacedrive index external sources like Gmail, Apple Notes, Chrome bookmarks, Slack, and GitHub through script-based adapters, turning each into a searchable repository alongside your files.
How does Spacedrive avoid duplicate files across devices?Every file gets a BLAKE3 content hash, so the same file on two different devices produces an identical hash, letting Spacedrive track redundancy and deduplication across your whole device fleet.
What are similar projects?Telegram-Drive, EnvoyMesh, siyuan, obsidian-livesync, karakeep, happy, laya, p2wlan
Which topics is it in?cloud-storage, distributed, filesystem, file-manager, sync, p2p, storage, vector-database, tauri, semantic-search, react-native, ocr
Creator
spacedriveapp
Size
275.1 MB
Stars
39.2K
Updated
CommitOct 13Release0.4.3Mar 24
Age
5y
Commits · 90 Days