DeskBox

A free, open-source, local-first Windows desktop organizer with native-feeling WinUI 3 widgets.

English | 简体中文

External pull requests are not being merged at this time — bug reports, ideas, and discussions are very welcome via Issues / Discussions. See CONTRIBUTING.md.

DeskBox organizes desktop files, maps existing folders, and keeps everyday tools close without replacing Explorer or changing how your files work. Its real-folder-backed widgets make it a modern open-source alternative to tools such as Stardock Fences, while Glance, todos, quick notes, search, weather, and music controls remain useful extras rather than the product's core promise.

Mica and Acrylic on the desktop

DeskBox uses native-feeling Windows materials and keeps ordinary desktop files and folders in place.

Mica	Acrylic

DeskBox at a glance

Platform	Windows 10/11, x64 and ARM64
Technology	C#, WinUI 3, .NET 10 Native AOT, Windows App SDK 2.5.1, Rust native Shell layer
Storage model	Local-first; files, notes, tasks, settings, and layouts remain on the PC
Languages	English, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Japanese, German, Brazilian Portuguese, Hindi, Spanish, French, Arabic, Bengali, Russian
License	GPL-3.0-only

All twelve selectable languages share the same resource-key and formatting-placeholder coverage.

Download

DeskBox 1.5.8 is prepared for release. The GitHub Releases download links below will become available after publication.

• DeskBox 1.5.8 for x64, recommended for most Intel and AMD PCs.
• DeskBox 1.5.8 for ARM64, recommended for Snapdragon, Surface Pro X, and other Windows on ARM PCs.

Both packages are Full Native AOT builds with the matching private Windows App Runtime 2.5.1, so they can install offline without downloading a separate .NET 10 or Windows App Runtime package.

Every release publishes a matching .sha256 sidecar for each installer. Code signing is integrated via SignPath: starting with the first release published after the production certificate is issued, installers are signed by the SignPath Foundation; until then, verify the hash before running an installer. See the code signing policy for details.

DeskBox itself installs for the current user by default.

Features

File organizer and folder widgets

• Create managed file widgets backed by ordinary folders, or map an existing folder without moving it.
• Use icon or list layouts, title styles, detail and path controls, manual or rule-based sorting, compact display density, per-widget icon size override, and one-line, two-line, or hidden file names. Widgets resize down to 50×50.
• Reorder items directly, move or copy them into a folder item, and create a folder with automatic scrolling and inline naming. Manual order is restored after restart.
• Stack files manually, or let automatic grouping do it as a separate opt-in switch. A stack can expand inside the widget or open as an Adaptive, 3×3, or 5×5 popover that shares the grid's icon size, density, selection, and Ctrl+mouse-wheel behavior and stays within screen edges.
• Drag files and shortcuts in or out, copy, cut, paste, rename, delete, and reveal in Explorer. Dragging can follow the Windows default copy-or-move decision, including cross-volume behavior and modifier-key shortcut creation, with native drop images and target descriptions. Drop files onto an application shortcut tile to open them with that application; drag-out modifier hints and result toasts can be turned off in Settings.
• Shell copy and move operations show per-item progress while keeping the source, destination, and receiving folders protected from conflicting changes.
• Move existing files into managed storage through a copy-first migration with preview, per-phase progress, verification, and resumable retry; the source is never auto-deleted. Choosing a storage root on a network drive, a removable disk, the system drive, or a desktop-overlapping folder warns up front.
• Create shortcuts, permanently delete with confirmation and partial-result reporting, run a supported executable as administrator, or open the rest of the native Shell menu near the pointer.
• Drop content from Explorer, WeChat, or a browser; remote image and file URLs can be downloaded and imported.
• Preview supported files through a running QuickLook instance by pressing Space.

Widget groups and desktop organization

• Merge file widgets into a group without changing their backing folders, then switch members from the title, mouse wheel, or cyclic Ctrl+Tab shortcut.
• Detach a member or dissolve a group safely; grouped and standalone file widgets share the same views, settings, menus, sorting, drag-and-drop, and QuickLook behavior.
• Preview desktop organization by category before moving anything, and choose whether each category creates a folder or reuses an existing widget.
• Optionally include retained folders, large files, and items beyond the quick batch, and get access-denied, in-use, changed, unavailable, or failed transfers explained separately instead of a silent skip.
• Optionally organize new desktop files after downloads, extraction, and same-path replacements reach a stable state, with a configurable dwell from real-time to 12 hours.

Todo and Quick Capture

• Work in responsive Todo and Quick Capture list/detail layouts that switch between single- and dual-pane modes, with an adjustable master pane on wide widgets.
• Track tasks with due dates, reminders, recurrence, color markers, Markdown notes, multi-item attachments, filters, and batch actions.
• Save reusable text, links, images, and files in Quick Capture with pinning, paper styles, Markdown editing and preview, removable attachments, and focused editing.
• Keep attachment files linked to their original location or copy them into DeskBox-managed storage.

Desktop search

• Search files, folders, applications, settings, notes, and todos from one popup or search widget.
• File results come from Everything's existing local index over IPC and merge with DeskBox content in the same window, without a duplicate file index on DeskBox's side.
• Everything is detected or launched from Settings, where you can choose its executable, see connection and permission status, opt into advanced syntax, and filter low-value system and cache paths. Everything itself is not bundled and must be installed separately.
• Use configurable filters, sortable detail columns, result limits, history, favorites, and a global search hotkey.
• Select multiple rows with Ctrl or Shift, drag a selection rectangle with edge auto-scroll, and apply batch actions to the result set.
• Receive staged incremental results while individual providers stay isolated from one another when a source fails.
• The popup shell is warmed during idle time so a widget click can show and focus it first, while recommendations and icons recover in the background. A search window left hidden long enough can release its visual tree; disabling Search releases the complete search runtime.

Glance, weather, and music

• Glance keeps the date, weekday, lunar calendar, solar terms, and festivals visible, with your own background image or rotation and an independent image transparency control.
• View current conditions plus hourly and multi-day forecasts with MSN Weather and automatic Open-Meteo fallback.
• Choose a theme-aware Standard weather skin or the richer condition-based skin, and pick one of four bundled weather icon styles — Fluent, DeskBox line-art, Meteocons Flat, and Meteocons Line — that render identically on Windows 10 and 11. Responsive Day and Week views adapt across widget sizes; startup shows a fresh cached forecast immediately and keeps refresh work off the interaction path.
• Control the active Windows media session, playback mode, progress, and system volume from the music widget, or switch between available media sessions and follow the system-selected source.
• Use responsive cover, controls, record, and compact layouts with optional album-color ambience.

Capsule mode and native Windows behavior

• Collapse widgets into smart capsules with click-to-toggle or hover-to-expand behavior; the expansion choice is the main capsule control, with ready-made hover presets.
• Show key information, a short summary, or only an icon and title; hide sensitive Todo and Quick Capture text while collapsed.
• Arrange capsules independently or combine them into a movable, ordered bar.
• A hover-expanded capsule or group stays open while you use a stack popover, context menu, drag operation, title editor, or close confirmation, and collapses only after the interaction ends and the pointer has left.
• Raise or hide all widgets from the tray, F7, double Ctrl, Alt+Space, Win+Space, a single Win-key tap, a custom shortcut captured with a PowerToys-style recorder that safely intercepts system chords mid-recording, or an optional double-click on a blank desktop area. Reserved Windows combinations warn about their system-side effect before you enable them, and modifier-only or incomplete taps are ignored.
• Quick Reveal temporarily shows widgets above other windows without permanently changing their desktop-layer behavior, and keeps the first activating click instead of losing it.
• Serialized repeated-toggle handling and recovery cover display, DPI, sleep, and Explorer changes.
• Customize Mica/acrylic materials, opacity, DWM corners, animation, title bars, icon size, and text size. Swap any widget's icon for an emoji or a local image, give it its own background image with fit and dim controls, choose global background modes (follow the material, one unified image, or a panorama where each widget frames its own slice of the image by its position on the desktop), and pick border styles with an optional text shadow. Widget text and monochrome controls can follow the app theme or use light, dark, custom, and per-widget colors, with an optional text edge treatment.

Layout, displays, and performance

• Widgets belong to their display. Drag a widget to a screen and that screen becomes its home; every combination of connected displays keeps its own arrangement. Unplug a display and, after a grace period, its widgets relocate proportionally to a remaining screen or collapse into capsules; plug it back in and every widget returns to its exact spot. A first-seen combination seeds onto the most similar display instead of piling onto the primary.
• Windows-side display changes leave placed widgets where they are: switching the primary display, resolution and scale changes, monitor rearranging, lock-screen and sleep re-enumerations, and full-screen games that change the resolution. Only widgets set to always follow the main display move.
• A Displays page in Settings previews the arrangement with per-screen widget lists, flashes a number on each screen to identify it, pins every widget to the current layout in one click, and sets a default display for new widgets. Widgets and groups can also bind to a display from the context menu — bindings follow display hardware identity and survive sleep, reconnects, and Windows renumbering. "Move all widgets to this display" maps positions proportionally, shows friendly device names, and is undoable.
• A replacement or differently scaled monitor receives a proportional in-bounds layout instead of leaving widgets off-screen.
• Hold Ctrl while dragging a widget title to move every eligible widget on the current display as one bounded group. Snapping works while moving as well as resizing, with a configurable gap and screen-edge protection.
• Settings → General offers Balanced, Resource saver, or Custom performance modes. Custom controls hidden-widget cache cleanup, visible-idle cleanup, transient-window release, icon/thumbnail/image cache budget, and individual continuous animations such as text marquee, vinyl rotation, Glance image rotation, and capsule effects.
• Hidden and inactive widgets release recreatable UI surfaces, decoded images, icons, and thumbnails according to the selected policy, while process-wide WinRT settings reuse, shared brushes, cached window factories, and targeted list updates keep the hot paths quiet. Animation pacing adapts to the current display's refresh rate, with extra frame-pacing and backdrop safeguards on Windows 10.
• Startup waits for Explorer's desktop icon host to stabilize before attaching desktop-layer widgets, so widget restoration does not disturb Windows' own icon-position recovery. If the managed storage drive is temporarily disconnected, widgets stay intact and recover once it returns.

Updates, backup, and diagnostics

• Check for updates in the app, read long release notes in a dedicated view, retry failed downloads, or continue from the official website.
• Start a visible installer after DeskBox closes; upgrades reuse and lock the existing installation path instead of creating a second copy.
• Back up and restore settings locally, or back up todos, quick captures, and widget styles to your own WebDAV server on a schedule; passwords live in Windows Credential Manager, each data domain toggles independently, and remote snapshots can be browsed and restored in merge or snapshot-faithful mode.
• Export a privacy-filtered diagnostics package for troubleshooting.
• Recover settings from resilient snapshots, flush pending changes during shutdown, and report save failures instead of silently reverting to defaults.

What's new in 1.5.8

• More accurate administrator notices. The "running as administrator" notice now appears only when DeskBox runs above the shell, so fully elevated desktops (company-managed machines included) no longer see it. The notice closes the elevated instance in one click and provides the steps to restart with normal privileges, and one-click updates no longer restart the app as administrator.
• Graceful under an elevated Explorer. When Explorer itself runs elevated, DeskBox stays reachable — the reveal hotkey and settings keep working, an explanatory notice replaces the silent English failure box, and diagnostics learn to detect a shortcut's "Run as administrator" flag.
• Maintenance wave. Todo-widget drags no longer crash; switching groups no longer loses stacked-member icons; cutting a subfolder and pasting it back no longer hangs; auto-organization rules survive restarts; a crashing desktop no longer drags DeskBox into a logon restart loop.

Read the complete changelog or the 1.5.8 release notes.

What's new in 1.5.7

• Exit reliability. Quitting from the tray now always ends the process — on machines where the system's exit handshake stalls (typically UAC fully disabled with an elevated Explorer), a leftover background process used to linger, slowly eat memory, and hold the right-click menu proxy alive beside it.
• Windows 10 polish. The "drag out" card under File widgets → drag-and-drop behavior shows its title and question-mark tip again, and its Windows 10 explanation renders in the description area instead of deforming the card or spilling outside it on scaled windows; long helper texts in other settings cards are width-capped the same way.
• Themed dialogs, clickable rows. The desktop-organization abandon dialog, preview cards, and hotkey recorder follow the app's theme override again, and desktop-organization rule rows respond to clicks once more.

Read the complete changelog or the 1.5.7 release notes.

What's new in 1.5.6

• Widgets belong to their display. Drag a widget to a screen and that screen becomes its home; every combination of connected displays keeps its own layout, an unplugged screen's widgets collapse or relocate gracefully, and everything returns to its exact spot when it reconnects. A new Displays page in Settings identifies screens, pins layouts in one click, and sets a default screen for new widgets.
• Layouts that survive scale changes. Widgets remember their size and anchor against each display's reference frame, so switching between 1080p and 4K — or dropping into a remote session — reflows the arrangement instead of leaving oversized widgets adrift in whitespace.
• Restores adapt to the machine. A backup restored onto another PC or Windows account re-registers its startup entry and moves its account-local folders to the current user, and the restore notice says what it did.
• Dress up your widgets. Swap any widget's icon for an emoji or a local image, give widgets their own backgrounds, choose global background modes (material, unified image, or a panorama where each widget frames its own slice of the image), and add border styles and a text shadow.
• Quieter, safer starts. Start silently with Windows and summon everything back from the tray or hotkey; an elevated launch explains itself and restarts at normal privileges in one click; migrating files into managed storage is now a verified copy-first flow that never auto-deletes the source.
• More polish. Four bundled weather icon styles, PowerToys-style hotkey recording, undoable "move all widgets to this display", and a reorganized Settings window with accordions.
• File-safety hardening. A pre-release audit round closed every reachable data-loss path it found: full restores can no longer apply unconfirmed, deleting search results follows the Windows confirmation even on volumes without a Recycle Bin, network-drive widget folders no longer bypass the bin, attachment removal only ever touches managed copies, and a failed move-back keeps the widget intact with a clear message.
• Platform. Windows App Runtime 2.5.1; the minimum supported Windows 10 build is now 19041 (version 2004).

Read the complete changelog or the 1.5.6 release notes.

Current interface

Settings pages fold low-frequency options into expandable accordions, and the built-in search box finds any setting. The screenshots below will be refreshed for the reorganized 1.5.6 settings window.

Settings

General	Appearance

Capsule mode	File widgets

Feature widgets	Shortcuts & interaction

Local-first data and privacy

DeskBox does not require an account or cloud synchronization. Widget configuration, todos, quick notes, search history, layouts, and managed files are stored locally; the optional WebDAV backup, when you configure it, only ever contacts your own server.

Some actions intentionally use the network:

• Weather requests use MSN Weather or Open-Meteo.
• Update checks contact the DeskBox update endpoint or GitHub Releases.
• DeskBox 1.4.8 and later Full installers carry the matching Windows App Runtime; older Direct installers download a missing runtime when needed.
• A remote URL dragged from a browser is downloaded only when you import it.

Capsule privacy mode hides selected text in the collapsed presentation; it is a presentation control, not file encryption.

System requirements

• Windows 10 version 2004 (build 19041) or later; Windows 11 version 22H2 or later for the full visual treatment. Older Windows 10 releases past end of servicing (2004/20H2/21H1) still install and run, but upgrading to 22H2 or later is recommended.
• x64 or ARM64 processor matching the installer.
• Windows App Runtime 2.5.1. DeskBox 1.4.8 and later Full installers include a private matching runtime, and Native AOT requires no separate .NET 10 runtime.

On Windows 10, unsupported materials, rounded corners, and some animations automatically fall back to compatible visuals; file sync, drag-and-drop, and core widget behavior are validated against the compatibility floor.

Installation, updates, and removal

DeskBox uses an Inno Setup installer and installs for the current user by default. Overwrite installation preserves app settings, widget configuration, and managed storage. Older administrator-level installations under Program Files are migrated to avoid elevated-process drag-and-drop restrictions. If DeskBox itself is launched as administrator, it explains that drag and drop with Explorer is blocked and offers a one-click restart at normal privileges; autostart instances restart themselves automatically.

Startup launch is tray-first and can start silently, keeping widgets hidden until the first tray click, hotkey, or app activation. If DeskBox is already running, a second startup instance exits instead of opening another settings window.

Auto-start uses a per-user Run entry, so DeskBox appears in Settings → Apps → Startup. Legacy scheduled-task registrations migrate automatically when it is safe to do so, and disabling DeskBox from Windows is reflected by the in-app switch.

Uninstall offers explicit choices to keep application data or permanently remove it. The direct-edition uninstaller detects a possibly-installed Microsoft Store edition and conservatively keeps app data in that case. Permanent removal clears %LocalAppData%\DeskBox, %LocalAppData%\DeskBox-Recovery, temporary files, and DeskBox-owned registration data; user files in the managed storage path are always preserved. Silent uninstall keeps application data unless an administrator explicitly supplies /PURGEUSERDATA.

FAQ

Is DeskBox a Windows desktop replacement?

No. Explorer remains the desktop shell, and files remain normal files and folders. DeskBox adds independently managed widgets above the existing desktop.

Where does DeskBox store data?

• App settings and widget data: %LocalAppData%\DeskBox\data
• New-user managed storage: a fixed non-system drive with enough free space when available, such as D:\DeskBox\username; otherwise %UserProfile%\DeskBox

Both locations can be backed up from DeskBox settings.

Which installer should I choose?

Choose x64 for almost all Intel and AMD Windows PCs. Choose ARM64 for native Windows on ARM devices such as Snapdragon PCs. Check Settings → System → About → System type if unsure.

Why can the installer need the internet?

The currently published 1.4.7 and earlier Direct installers can download a missing Windows App Runtime. Starting with 1.4.8, the standard x64 and ARM64 Full installers bundle the matching private runtime and can install offline; Native AOT needs no separate .NET runtime.

Does disabling a feature widget remove its data?

No. Disabling a feature closes its UI and releases runtime resources, while its saved configuration remains available for the next time you enable it.

Build from source

Development requires the .NET 10 SDK and a Windows 11 environment. Visual Studio with the Windows App SDK workload is recommended. The Rust toolchain pinned by rust-toolchain.toml is required when publishing with -p:DeskBoxRustNative=true, which is what shipping builds use for the shortcut, system volume, Quick Access, Recycle Bin, and Explorer Shell native paths.

Restore, test, and build the x64 Debug version:

dotnet restore .\DeskBox.sln -p:Platform=x64
dotnet test .\DeskBox.Tests\DeskBox.Tests.csproj --configuration Debug --no-restore -p:Platform=x64 -v:minimal
dotnet build .\src\DeskBox\DeskBox.csproj --configuration Debug --no-restore -p:Platform=x64 -v:minimal

scripts\publish-aot-retail.ps1 is the authoritative path for retail packages. It produces a Full Native AOT payload with private Windows App Runtime components, builds the matching Rust DLL, generates the install manifest used for safe upgrades, and audits the produced binaries:

.\scripts\publish-aot-retail.ps1 -Platform x64
.\scripts\publish-aot-retail.ps1 -Platform ARM64

The publish output is self-contained for both .NET Native AOT and Windows App SDK deployment. Do not replace this script with a bare dotnet publish: the installer requires the generated DeskBox.InstallManifest.txt to remove files owned by older payloads without touching user-created files.

With Inno Setup 6 or newer installed, compile the standard-named offline installers:

ISCC.exe /DDeskBoxNativeAot=1 /DDeskBoxBundledRuntime=1 /DMyAppReleaseDir=..\.artifacts\aot-retail\win-x64\publish .\installer\DeskBox.iss
ISCC.exe /DDeskBoxNativeAot=1 /DDeskBoxBundledRuntime=1 /DMyAppReleaseDir=..\.artifacts\aot-retail\win-arm64\publish .\installer\DeskBox.arm64.iss

Expected outputs:

Output\DeskBox_Setup_1.5.8_x64.exe
Output\DeskBox_Setup_1.5.8_arm64.exe

Project layout

src\DeskBox                 WinUI 3 application (widget shell, services, views)
src\DeskBox.Updater         direct-release updater helper
native                      Rust native layer, Shell ABI, and thumbnail proxy
tests\DeskBox.Tests         service, policy, and AOT contract tests
scripts                     build, publish, audit, and memory measurement scripts
installer                   x64/ARM64 Inno Setup scripts
docs\architecture           current architecture, native ABI contracts, AOT stages
docs\articles              product articles and tutorials
docs\images                 README and release imagery
docs\releases               release copy and test checklists
.github\workflows           CI, ARM64 runtime, and distribution audits

Feedback and localization

DeskBox is currently developed and maintained by a solo developer. External pull requests are not being accepted at this stage so the project can keep a consistent architecture and clear copyright boundaries, but bug reports, feature requests, translations, and UI/UX feedback are welcome through GitHub Issues.

Special thanks to @magisph for the Brazilian Portuguese localization.

You can also visit deskbox.fun or use the contact information in the app's About page.

Author and license

• Developer: Tianyu Zhu
• Repository: https://github.com/Tianyu199509/DeskBox
• License: GPL-3.0-only

Earlier DeskBox versions already published under the MIT License remain available under that license. The change is not retroactive.

Star history

If DeskBox helps you, a star ⭐ is a big encouragement for this solo project.