Filen Desktop (local bridges)

Filen Desktop ships two Network Drive bridges that let any S3-aware or WebDAV-aware client talk to your Filen account through the desktop app's local listener. AeroFTP exposes both as first-class Discover entries.

Preset	Endpoint	Port	Auth	Notes
Filen Desktop (local WebDAV)	local.webdav.filen.io	1900	Basic auth (separate from the Filen account)	HTTP only. Needs the WebDAV bridge enabled in Filen Desktop.
Filen Desktop (local S3)	local.s3.filen.io	1700	Access key + secret (separate from the Filen account)	HTTP only. Path-style addressing, region must be filen, bucket must be filen.

Both bridges run on 127.0.0.1 and require Filen Desktop to be open and signed in. AeroFTP enforces HTTP for these specific hostnames in the WebDAV scheme detector so the handshake never tries TLS against a plaintext listener.

When to use which: pick the WebDAV bridge if the rest of your tooling already speaks WebDAV; pick the S3 bridge if you want to use the AeroFTP S3 streaming code path (multi-thread chunk parallel download, prefix listing) against your Filen vault. Both speak the same Filen account; you can switch between them without re-uploading anything.

Filen Desktop > local WebDAV

Setup

1. Open Filen Desktop and sign in with your Filen account.
2. Go to Settings > Network Drive > WebDAV.
3. Choose a username and password for the bridge. These are local credentials, separate from your Filen account.
4. Toggle Enabled and pick port 1900 (default) or a custom one.
5. Keep Filen Desktop running while you connect from AeroFTP.

Connection settings

Field	Value
Server	local.webdav.filen.io
Port	1900
Scheme	HTTP (auto-detected)
Username	The WebDAV bridge username (set in Filen Desktop)
Password	The WebDAV bridge password (set in Filen Desktop)

The Discover preset ships inline setup steps so the credential fields render with the configuration path you have to walk in Filen Desktop above them.

Filen Desktop > local S3

Setup

1. Open Filen Desktop and sign in with your Filen account.
2. Go to Settings > Network Drive > S3.
3. Choose an access key and secret key for the bridge. These are local credentials, separate from your Filen account.
4. Toggle Enabled and pick port 1700 (default) or a custom one.
5. Region must stay filen and bucket must stay filen.
6. Keep Filen Desktop running while you connect from AeroFTP.

Connection settings

Field	Value
Endpoint	http://local.s3.filen.io:1700
Region	filen (literal)
Bucket	filen (literal)
Path-style addressing	Required
Access key	The S3 bridge access key (set in Filen Desktop)
Secret key	The S3 bridge secret key (set in Filen Desktop)

Why HTTP, not HTTPS

Both bridges listen on the loopback interface only. Filen Desktop does not provision a TLS certificate for local.webdav.filen.io or local.s3.filen.io because the hostnames resolve to 127.0.0.1. AeroFTP's WebDAV scheme detector recognises these hostnames (alongside localhost, 127.0.0.1, RFC 1918 ranges, *.local, and *.localhost) and pins them to HTTP regardless of port.

If you have a custom forward proxy that does add TLS in front of the bridge, override the scheme manually via the Discover preset's Advanced > Endpoint URL field (use the explicit https:// prefix).

Tips

• These bridges are not part of the native Filen API integration. Use the Filen native provider when you want metadata-encrypted listings, 2FA-aware authentication, or v3 Argon2id login.
• The bridges are great for AeroSync (the WebDAV one) and for the multi-thread chunk parallel download path (the S3 one) but they cannot share files: share links and trash management still go through the native Filen provider.
• If the bridge looks unreachable, confirm Filen Desktop is foregrounded - the listeners are tied to the app process, not to a system service.

Related

• Filen native provider - the direct API path with end-to-end encryption.
• WebDAV protocol
• S3-Compatible protocol