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Dropgate Logo

Dropgate Client

An Electron-based, privacy-first file sharing client built for secure communication with Dropgate servers.

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🌍 Overview

Dropgate Client is the desktop way to upload and share files through a Dropgate Server. It’s built to feel simple: pick a file, choose your options, hit upload, and share the link.

✨ Features

  • 🔒 End-to-End Encryption (E2EE) | Encrypt on your device before upload, decrypt on the recipient’s device. The server doesn’t need your key.

  • 🌐 Server Agnostic | Connect to any compatible Dropgate Server — whether it’s self-hosted at home, deployed via Docker, or behind a reverse proxy.

  • 🧱 Privacy by Design | No telemetry, no analytics, and no personal identifiers. Your data stays between you and your chosen server.

  • 🖥️ Cross-Platform Support | Available for Windows, macOS, and Linux.

  • 📦 Multi-File Uploads | Select or drag-and-drop multiple files at once — they're bundled together and uploaded in one go.

  • ⚡ Fast, Lightweight Interface | Simple drag-and-drop UI focused on minimalism and clarity.

  • 🧩 Smart Compatibility Checks | The client reads server capabilities (limits, encryption support, etc.) so you don’t run into surprises mid-upload.

  • 🪟 Windows Context Menu Integration | Right-click a file and upload in the background.

📦 Installation

To install Dropgate Client:

  1. Download the latest release for your OS from the releases page.
  2. Extract or install the app as you would any other desktop app.
  3. Launch the client and connect to your preferred server.

🚀 Usage

Sending a file

  1. Launch the client.
  2. Enter the server address you want to connect to (for example, your home server or a private Dropgate instance).
  3. Select a file to upload (or drag and drop it into the window).
  4. Choose your options (E2EE is auto-applied when available, file lifetime, etc.).
  5. Hit upload! When it finishes, the download link is copied to your clipboard.

Protip (Windows): Right-click a file and choose "Share with Dropgate" to upload in the background. E2EE is auto-applied when available; if not, you'll see a warning.

Receiving a file

  1. Open your web browser.
  2. Paste the download link into the address bar.
  3. Download as usual. If the file is end-to-end encrypted, decryption happens locally on your device.

🌐 Direct Transfer (P2P)

The desktop client focuses on the classic hosted-upload flow. If your server has Direct Transfer (P2P) enabled, you can use it from the server’s Web UI in your browser.

🛠️ Development

To set up a development environment:

git clone https://github.com/diamonddigitaldev/Dropgate.git
cd Dropgate/client
npm install
npm start

🏗️ Building

To build the client for your platform:

npm run build

Distributable binaries will appear in the dist folder.

🔌 Self-Hosting & Networking

Dropgate Client works seamlessly with self-hosted Dropgate Servers, which you can run from your own home server, NAS, or cloud VPS.

It plays nicely with common setups like:

  • 🌐 NGINX or Caddy reverse proxies
  • ☁️ Cloudflare Tunnel
  • 🔒 Tailscale private networks

📜 License

Dropgate Client is licensed under the GPL-3.0 License. See the LICENSE file for details.

📖 Acknowledgements

  • Logo designed by TheFuturisticIdiot
  • Built with Electron
  • Inspired by the growing need for privacy-respecting, open file transfer tools

AI Disclosure

This project uses AI tools to aid development.

AI is used to:

  • Plan significant changes
  • Implement initial passes of new features
  • Perform security audits (alongside human review)
  • Fix bugs and patch security vulnerabilities
  • Review pull requests (alongside human review)

AI is NOT used to:

  • Design UI/UX
  • Design visual assets (such as bitmap and vector graphics)
  • Triage issues
  • Decide project direction
  • Create release information

AI has a tendency to hallucinate/produce plausible but suboptimal, inaccurate or misleading solutions to delegated tasks.

Every commit is manually reviewed and approved by a member of Diamond Digital Development, and testing is carried out to ensure changes work as intended, do not introduce regressions, and meet reliability and security expectations before being merged into the master branch.

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