What's New in DriveVault

We've added some highly requested features in v1.2.9. Hold on tight!

Keyboard Navigation (Finally)

• Navigate your files and folders with the arrow keys! In Column View, use LEFT/RIGHT to move between folder levels and UP/DOWN to browse items, and press SPACE for a Quick Look preview. In Icon View, arrows navigate the grid naturally, ENTER opens folders, and CMD+UP goes back a folder level. Your most requested feature is finally here. We're still testing and improving it, so please let us know what does and doesn't work for you. If keyboard navigation ever gets confused, simply click on a file to reset the navigation logic.

Collapsible Bottom Toolbar

• Minimize the bottom toolbar with a single click for a distraction-free browsing experience. Click the down arrow to hide it, and the up arrow to bring it back. Neat!

Refined Interface Design

• The Bug Report / Feature Request and Review buttons now feature a subtle transparent design that stays out of your way until you need them - just hover to reveal these options without visual clutter. We've also polished the Column / Icon view switcher to be more sleek. Cool.

Drive Capacity Progress Bar

• The Add Drives screen now displays a clear progress bar showing your current library usage, making it easier to understand your capacity and choose the right plan as DriveVault grows with your drive library.

A quick but meaningful UI update following your feedback.

Page UI Design Improvements

• Redesigned the "Add Drives" page with a greatly improved layout.
• Better optimized for smaller screens (MacBook Air and MacBook Pro).
• Clearer pricing and tier information.
• Added information boxes for clearer explanations of the difference between Capacity Tiers and Bolt-Ons.

Faster, cleaner, more accurate scanning, alongside some nice UI improvements.

Faster Scans with Auto-Skip Technology

• We've expanded our list of auto-skipped file types to include cache files commonly generated by video and audio editing software like Adobe Premiere and Pro Tools. Files with extensions like PEK and CFA are technical cache files that apps create automatically alongside your real media files. Scanning these would unnecessarily slow down your scans and clutter your search results with files you don't actually need to catalog.

Clearer Scanning Options

• The Bundle and File Type exclusion settings have been redesigned with clearer explanations and better organization. We've made it easier to understand which file types are being skipped by default and why. You can still choose to scan any file type you want, but we now provide better guidance about the potential impact on scan times.

Smarter Drive Compatibility

• exFAT formatted drives should now scan twice as fast. Previously, duplicate files created by macOS making AppleDouble Sidecar entries could force DriveVault to scan twice the number of files than are actually on the drive. This has been completely resolved with some clever filtering. (Thank you to karmarinchen for the flag!)

More Accurate Drive Comparisons

• Fixed an issue where drive comparison results could be affected by whether the drives were currently connected to your Mac. Comparisons are now completely reliable regardless of connection status, eliminating false positives and giving you accurate results every time.

A big month for updates, keep the feedback coming. Here is what is new in v1.2.6.

RAW File Support Improvements

• Enhanced Fuji RAF support - Improved thumbnail generation and metadata extraction for Fuji lossless compressed .RAF files, along with better support for other RAW formats including Canon CR3, Olympus ORF, Panasonic RW2, and Samsung SRW files.

Drive Comparison Enhancements

• Better laptop experience - Fixed a window scrolling issue that prevented viewing all comparison results on smaller screens.
• Manual drive selection - You can now choose which drive is the source and which is the target when comparing drives, giving you more control over backup verification workflows.

Capacity Awareness

• Visual tier progress - The "Add Drives" button now displays a color-coded progress indicator showing how close you are to your tier's drive limit, making it easier to plan when to upgrade.

New Features

• Fresh new app icon with improved consistency across your Mac.
• Added folder size display in "Get Info" - see the total size of a folder at a glance.
• Individual file sizes are now available.

Context Scan (BETA)

• Introducing Context Scan, a new scanning mode that extracts and indexes the full text content from PDF documents, enabling powerful offline keyword search across your entire document archive.
• Perfect for academics searching research papers by content, legal professionals finding specific clauses across documents, writers locating quotes and sources, or business users searching contracts and reports by keywords.
• To use Context Scan, click the Scan Drive button and select Context Scan (BETA). Choose your drive containing PDF documents, and DriveVault will extract text content for offline searching.
• Search your documents by keywords or phrases even when drives are disconnected. Context Scan currently focuses exclusively on PDF documents.

This update focuses on smoother scans, better feedback, and a lighter footprint when DriveVault is in the background.

Scan Experience

• Satisfying scan completion - A new "Scan Complete!" celebration appears the moment your drive is fully indexed and ready to explore, complete with a soft chime.
• Live cataloging progress - The first phase of a scan (indexing) now shows a live item counter and the folders being walked, so you always know DriveVault is hard at work and hasn't frozen.
• Scan cloud-sync folders - Dropbox, iCloud Drive, Google Drive, OneDrive, Documents, Desktop, and other folders inside your home directory can now be scanned. Note: scanning of system files remains blocked, per user requests.

Performance

• Sleep mode - When you're not actively using DriveVault, it quiets down on CPU usage and frees up memory. Switch back and it picks up exactly where it left off.

Reliability

• Safer Forget Drive - A confirmation alert now appears before forgetting a drive, and the cleanup is more thorough so future re-scans start completely fresh.
• Working Help menu - The macOS Help menu now correctly opens the in-app Help Center.

Smarter Scanning

• Gaming archive and bundle recognition - DriveVault now skips deep scanning of game files, dramatically reducing scan times for drives with large game libraries. DriveVault now recognises over 180 different bundle/archive types across dozens of use-cases to reduce scan times and provide users with the most relevant information possible.
• Internal SSD scanning blocked - Prevents freezes caused by scanning millions of system files.
• NAS and RAID detection - These drive types are now automatically detected with a warning that DriveVault is not yet optimised for them. Related help documentation has been added.

Refreshed Previews

• Revamped Quick Look - Spacebar preview now has a cleaner layout and richer metadata display.
• Redesigned sidebar preview - File information is now presented more clearly.

Visual Polish

• Glowing progress bars - New glow effects on progress bars for a more refined look during scans.

Beautiful New Home View

• All-new dashboard view - DriveVault now opens to a visual home screen where you can see all your drives at a glance. Each drive gets its own card showing capacity, file counts, and status.
• Visual drive cards - Assign custom icons to each drive for instant recognition. See online/offline status, storage details, and quick actions without opening a drive.
• Project organization - Group drives into color-coded projects directly from the dashboard. Drag and drop drives between projects, collapse/expand groups, and sort your library however works best for you.
• Search and sort - Filter your drive library instantly. Sort by name, date added, size, or project.

Note: You may need to recreate projects if you had projects in a previous version of DriveVault.

Enhanced Search

• Improved search with helpful tips and safeguards against overly broad queries that could freeze the app.
• Search is now faster and more reliable.

Modern Interface Updates

• New, smoother and more informative initializing sequence when opening the app.
• New column/icon view toggle buttons in the bottom toolbar.
• Updated "Add Drives" button with distinctive glowing green styling to differentiate the action from "Scan Drives".
• Quick access to App Store reviews and feedback with the new 'Star' icon.

Highlights

• Fixed 5-Drive Bolt-On purchase - The 5-Drive add-on was not properly connected to the App Store in v1.1. This is now fixed and purchases work as expected.
• Redesigned "Add Drives" page - Users reported the horizontal scroll to reveal the "Unlimited" tier was easy to miss. The page now uses a new stacked layout that displays all tier options at once without scrolling.

Visual & Interface Improvements

• New vibrant logo colorway for better menubar visibility.
• Redesigned "Add Drives" button with auto-hide behavior for a cleaner workspace.
• Revamped pricing page with clear tier explanations and bolt-on value comparisons.

Search & Preview Enhancements

• Image previews in search results - instantly identify files visually without browsing folders. Find what you need at a glance.

Export & Data Management

• CSV export - Export complete drive file lists to spreadsheet format for external analysis. Find this in the "Reports" window.

Scanning Improvements

• Enhanced bundle detection - Now recognizes 120+ bundle types (up from 80).
• (Beta) Custom bundle filtering - Use the new gear icon in "Scan Drive" to control which bundles DriveVault includes or skips during scans. Note: Including bundle contents may significantly increase scan times and memory usage.

Smart Collections

• Improved scan progress UI with real-time status updates.
• Persistent file counts across sessions - category totals now saved between app launches.

New Purchase Option

• 5-Drive Bolt-On - Add 5 drives to your capacity at ~30% savings vs individual drive purchases.

Highlights

• Added macOS top menu Quick Search. Click the eye icon to open a powerful search bar separate from the main app window. Find any file instantly with advanced filters and sorting, without opening DriveVault.
• Introduced Project sorting. Hover over any project to reveal up and down arrows, allowing you to reorder projects in any way that suits your workflow.
• Launched a new, simpler non-subscription pricing model based on user feedback. Pay only for the number of drives you need, with flexibility to grow.
• Implemented new and improved scanning logic using intelligent drive partitioning to support larger drives and prevent stalled scans.
• Major overhaul of the Manage Library system, including a powerful new library reset option.

Highlights

• Fixed large drive scans failing or stalling at 50% with new auto-partitioning logic.
• Redesigned Drive Scan UI with "Full Scan + Previews" default.
• Added lazy loading for large libraries to prevent stalling.
• Fixed column sorting for file size.
• Added loading screen for Library Stats.
• Smarter Backup Mode with refreshed duplicate detection.

Highlights

• Public Beta launch with offline drive catalogs and global search.
• Finder-style Column, Icon, and List views with quick previews.
• Drive Library with custom icons, names, and online/offline status.

Highlights

• 2x faster initial scans on large photo/video drives.
• Smoother column navigation and better breadcrumb history.

Highlights

• Crash fixes during very large directory walks.
• Refined empty states and tooltips across the app.