Flow-Tube/Flow-Desktop nightly on GitHub

Automatic build of main at 428013a on 2026-11-14 17:34 UTC, from workflow run 1582.

Not for daily use. Nightly builds can break. They install as Flow Nightly, keep their own data apart from Flow, and are replaced by every new build. For the stable app, use the latest release.

Pick the file for your system: -setup.exe for Windows, .dmg for macOS, .deb, .rpm or .AppImage for Linux. SHA256SUMS lists the checksum of every file.

Installed nightly builds look for the next one and update themselves.

What's new since the last release. These changes ship in the next one.

Profiles

Up to five profiles on one computer, each with its own recommendations, history, library and settings, so a study profile and a gaming profile never mix. Downloads are shared.
Switch from your avatar in the top bar or in Settings > Profiles. Switching restarts Flow, and the new profile opens in its own theme.
A new profile starts fresh with a short setup, or copies your settings, subscriptions or recommendations. Profiles are not locked: anyone using the computer can switch.
Only the Default profile syncs with your phone. A master backup now holds every profile and restores them all.
The recommendation engine's profile is now called your taste profile.
With two or more profiles, Flow can ask who's watching when it opens. Turn Ask who's watching off in Settings > Profiles.
First-run setup now ends with a summary and adds two steps: Artists, where artists you pick shape your music picks only, and Alerts, for new video alerts.

Sync

Restoring with your recovery key now asks which devices you still have, and signs out the rest before it syncs anything new, so a lost device can't read what comes next.
Your recommendations sync with Flow for Android again. Both apps now read Chinese titles the same way, folding Traditional characters into Simplified ones.
When something stays on each device, the sync result now says what and why. After receiving, it lists what arrived.
SponsorBlock's action for each segment type now syncs with your phone. Synced SponsorBlock and DeArrow switches apply without a restart.
Data synced before comes back if this computer lost it. Music playlists from your phone no longer return under a new name, history sent to the phone has thumbnails, and subscription groups are sent when Flow Desktop scans the phone's code.
Play on: moving playback between Flow Desktop and your phone works again. A phone that paused or stopped no longer stays listed as playing, and a phone at full volume no longer shows its volume at 0.
Play on: picking a device now works as on Android. This computer takes playback back from the device you control, picking another device moves that device's session there, and a device that stops answering stops showing as playing.
Linked devices: choose which profiles sync. A profile starts its own synced profile or joins one from your other devices, and Profiles under Linked devices adds one that only your other devices have.
A synced profile that isn't open keeps what arrives and catches up when you switch to it. Stopping a profile on every device keeps its data on each one.
Linked devices has a Dashboard: where the group lives, how much of a Flow server's storage it uses, your devices, each synced profile's state and the latest sync errors.
The Flow Neuro page can show the interests of your other synced profiles, read on this computer without switching. From the Dashboard, View interests opens them.
A sync that arrives while Flow is busy saving something else, such as right after switching profiles, no longer fails and has to be run again.
A new device's Default profile now syncs only with Default here. If Default doesn't sync on this computer, the new device's Default starts its own synced profile instead of merging into another one.
On the local network, a device list entry from another device that can't be read is skipped, and the rest of the list still syncs.
Linked devices: a device name that can't be read is left out instead of hiding the device list or stopping a rename. The latest readable name is shown.
A snapshot, acknowledgement or LAN request that names a log position too large to read exactly is now refused as invalid.
Linked devices accept only device keys and signatures that every Flow app reads the same way, so devices can't disagree about who is in a group.
A damaged file in a WebDAV folder's roster no longer stops every device from syncing. It is skipped and the rest of the roster is read.
Sync no longer hangs on a store that keeps answering with the same page. It stops reading and tries again at the next sync.
Sync stops reading an answer larger than it can be, from a Flow server, a WebDAV folder, the live channel or a device on your network, so a broken or hostile store can't use up memory.
A damaged or forged object from one device no longer fails the whole sync. Reading that device's changes pauses there, and the other devices' changes still arrive.
The same holds for an object or a file in a store's folder that is too large or that the store refuses: only that device's changes pause. A store that is out of reach, refuses your login or asks to slow down still fails the sync.
The same holds when a new device starts from a snapshot or a profile starts syncing: a damaged or forged object no longer fails the sync, and the profile is caught up once it can be read.
A snapshot or profile name from another device that carries an out-of-range number no longer stops a synced profile from being read.
Linked devices accept a synced object's data only in the one form every Flow app writes, so two devices can't read different data from the same object.
A malformed roster entry from another device on the local network is refused, so the group stays readable on this computer.
Linked devices refuse a device list entry whose sealed device name isn't in the one form every Flow app writes.
Joining a group over the local network now refuses a malformed welcome from the other device.
Linked devices: Replace recovery words gives your group a new recovery key from any linked device. The old words stop working, and your devices move to a new encryption key.
The Sync page now opens on Linked devices, which keep your devices in sync all the time. The one-time transfer to a nearby device moves below them, and Linked devices stay on screen while a transfer runs.
On the local network, an object as large as a sync object can be is now passed between devices whole, instead of being refused for its size.
Linked devices check for devices asking to join every 5 seconds only while the Sync page is on screen, and the check no longer reads the whole device list from the server.
A new device that starts from a snapshot whose data can't be read now starts from an older snapshot instead of failing the sync.
Linked devices: allowing or declining remote control now takes effect whichever profile is open.
Linked devices reach a Flow server or WebDAV folder on your local network directly, even when a system proxy is set.
Linked devices only ever touch files inside the group's own WebDAV folder.
One device's unreadable change no longer keeps other devices' changes from arriving, however many are waiting.
When the store refuses something this computer wrote, Linked devices keep receiving changes, retry it in order and show the error, instead of stopping the sync.
On the local network, a connection that stays silent is dropped after a few seconds, and it no longer stops this computer from meeting your other devices or answering them.
Linked devices sign in to your Flow server about once every 15 minutes instead of before every sync.
Notes sync with Flow for Android, over the QR code and Linked devices, and are part of backups. Notes your phone sent before this version come back on the next sync, and a device that joins later gets them from this computer.
Saved Shorts sync with your phone in both directions, as the same list on each device, once the phone has saved a Short of its own. Saved Shorts that an earlier sync brought in as a playlist move to the Saved Shorts page.
Sync now listens on fixed ports when they are free: 47900 for Linked devices and 47901 for a one-time transfer, so a firewall rule made once keeps working. The Linux packages include a firewalld service and a ufw profile named flow-desktop.
When the phone can't reach this computer, the pairing screen now says what to do on this system. On Linux it shows the command for your firewall, ready to copy, and Linked devices shows the same help.
A connection that fails now says whether the other device turned it down or never answered, instead of one message for both.
The Sync page is now a short list, like Settings: join, start or restore a group, and send to or receive from a nearby device. Each one opens on its own, with a back arrow, instead of every form showing at once.
Once this device is in a group, its status, devices, profiles, recovery words, storage and recent errors sit on one page. The separate Dashboard tab is gone.

Library

Notes on videos and channels: a Note button on the Watch and Channel pages, a small card that shows the note. Times like 12:34 in a video's note jump there. Settings > Content has the switches.
A Notes page in Library and the sidebar: search, filter by videos or channels, sort by edit time, title or your own order, and select notes to copy, delete or reorder. Each note lists its times, and Play from starts the video there.
Play on is now in the full music player too. Its list says when playback is moving, links to Manage linked devices, and Flow tells you when another device hands playback to this one.
Flow now keeps a private record of what you watch and listen to, month by month, for Recap. It stays on this computer, is part of master backups, never syncs, and records nothing during Deep Flow. Months from before this version start from a rough estimate based on your watch history.
Flow Recap: open it from Library or Settings > Taste to see your month, your year or all time, for videos, music or both. It shows time per day, your clock, weekdays, a calendar, top channels, videos, artists and songs, topics, what stood out, and the time SponsorBlock saved you.
Play your recap as a full-window story. Each page has its own colours and its figures count up. Click a segment to jump, hold to pause, Space pauses, the arrow keys step and Esc closes. It stops when Flow is in the background and ends on a card you can save as a PNG or copy, with a way to play it again.
Global media keys, in Settings > Keyboard Shortcuts, let your keyboard's play, next and previous keys control Flow while it is in the background. It is off by default, and Linux needs an X11 session.
Press ? to see every video and music key. The same list is in Settings > Keyboard Shortcuts.
Edit a playlist's name and description, and search inside any playlist, even one too long to show at once.
Add a whole playlist to one of your own, or merge two of yours, from the playlist's menu. Playlists also sort by Longest and Shortest, and the Playlists page has a Custom order you can drag.
A YouTube playlist now says when unavailable videos are hidden from it.
Select many videos in a playlist to add them to the queue, add them to another playlist, download them, or remove them with Undo.
Save any playlist or music collection as a file from its menu, and import one with Import from file on the Playlists or Albums page. The files are the same ones Flow for Android saves and opens. A music playlist imports into your Albums.
Likes has a sort, and you can select many to queue, download or remove them with Undo. Download all and Save as file work on what the page shows. With songs and videos both on show, Play and Save as file take the videos.
History has a Shorts tab, Newest and Oldest first, and a year to narrow it to. A removed video can be brought back with Undo, and Delete Shorts from history clears only the Shorts.
Every video card now shows a red bar for how much of the video you watched, on Home, Search, channels, playlists and the Watch page, as in the Android app. It follows playback as you watch and fills once a video is marked as watched. Turn it off with Show watch progress in Settings > Content.
Hide any Library section in Settings > Content & UI.
A new Remove watched videos switch takes videos out of Watch Later once you finish them, and opening Watch Later clears any you watched elsewhere, with Undo.
Subscriptions has a Refresh button that refreshes only the group you have open. Refresh subscriptions at startup now works.
Manage subscriptions can be sorted by name or latest upload, and shows video channels and music artists apart.
Videos a channel you follow made with someone else now reach your subscription feed. Collaborations has its own switch in Settings.
The Subscribed menu on a channel can add it to a subscription group and hide that channel's Shorts from your feed. Channel pages have a Share button.
Discover channels, opened from Your taste, lists channels like the ones you follow and channels you watch without following, and searches for any channel.

Music

Each credited artist on a song with multiple artists now has their own link in the player and track lists, opening their own profile instead of the primary artist's.
The volume popover in the music bar and the full player closes by itself after a few idle seconds. Scrolling over the volume button while it is closed shows the new level for a moment.
Autoplay radio no longer stops after about 20 songs. A station keeps adding songs while it has more to play.
Instrumental songs no longer show KuGou's notice as their lyrics.
Clicking an empty part of the music bar now opens the full player. The buttons, the seek line and dragging up work as before.
Hiding or showing the Queue or Lyrics pane in the full player no longer stretches the title and controls, and the artwork moves with the text.
A new Blur other lines switch in the lyrics menu and Settings keeps every line of synced lyrics sharp. Linux never blurs them, so it doesn't show there.
Synced lyrics stay sharp while you scroll them by hand. Lines no longer cross when you click one or seek, and a line you click moves straight into place.
Follow on an artist's page now really follows them. It used to forget as soon as you left the page. Artists you follow, here or on an artist card, go to your phone as music artists.
A song played from search now plays alone, with radio filling up next, instead of queueing the other results.
Album and playlist pages have a search, and each one remembers how you sorted it: title, artist, album, length or, on your own lists, date added.
Select songs on an album or playlist to play them next, queue them, add them to an album, download them or take them out of your own list with Undo.
Rename your own albums and change their description, download whole YouTube Music playlists, share albums and playlists, and get suggestions under your own lists.
Settings > Music has a switch for each music home shelf. New shelves show your own playlists and the artists you follow, plus Live performances and Music videos for you when YouTube offers them.
Import your top artists from Last.fm, Libre.fm or ListenBrainz in Settings > Music, so recommendations start from your real listening.
If you're signed in to Last.fm, the music home gets a Discover with Last.fm shelf picked from what you have on repeat.
Artist pages show how often you've played an artist and whether you liked them, with your most played songs of theirs under Your history.
Artist pages also get a Featured on shelf and a Share button.
Crossfade now matches Flow for Android: lengths from 250 ms to 12 s (3 s by default), separate switches for fading when a song ends and when you skip, keep albums gapless, and the fade curves Equal power, Smooth, Hold and Gentle.
A crossfade is never dropped. When the next song is not ready yet, the current one fades out on its own and the next comes in quickly. Short songs and Repeat one fade too, and the fade lasts the same time at any speed.
Next and Previous keep the song playing until the next one starts, then blend the two, even when crossfade is off (a quarter-second blend).
Pause crossfade from the music player's menu until Flow restarts, without changing your settings.
Animated artwork: turn it on in Settings > Music and albums with motion artwork loop it over the cover in the full player.
Romanize on this device, in Settings > Lyrics and the lyrics menu, adds Latin letters under lyrics in other scripts when the source has none. Japanese isn't covered yet.
Song menus have Details: title, artist, album, views, likes, length and upload date. Click a line to copy it.
Settings > Music can hide the artwork in the full player, change the shape of the music progress bar, and make album art and cards on music pages smaller.
YouTube captions are a lyrics source you can turn on in Settings > Lyrics. It is off by default for now, because YouTube currently refuses these requests for every song.
New switches: open the full player for new songs, pause music while Flow or your computer is muted (Flow only on Linux), and keep the screen on while lyrics show. Autoplay for the queue is now in Settings > Music too.
The Taste tab can export, import and reset your music profile on its own, without touching your video profile.
Lyrics appear much faster: sources are asked side by side and the search stops after 9 seconds. Saved line-synced lyrics show at once, and word sync is looked for once a week.
Songs use YouTube Music's own timed lyrics first, and two more sources, NetEase and AMLL, help when the others have nothing. The next song's lyrics load ahead of time.
Songs with no lyrics are remembered for a week instead of asking every source on each play, and lyrics you pick or edit by hand stay until you press Refresh.
Romanization only, in the lyrics menu and Settings > Lyrics, replaces the original script with Latin letters.
Lyrics for songs with several artists are matched against every credited artist, and LrcLib, SimpMusic and KuGou no longer return lyrics for a different song or a much longer upload.
The lyrics timing you set is kept for each song, through Refresh, another source or an edit.
Line-synced lyrics show the dots during long instrumental breaks, including solos the lyrics leave unmarked, and the lyrics wait on the next line instead of jumping back to the top.
The glow on long held notes in word-synced lyrics rises and fades smoothly instead of in visible steps.
Fit lyrics to music videos, in Settings > Lyrics, uses SponsorBlock to move lyrics past a music video's intro, skits and other parts with no music. It is off by default, and only a short part of a hash of the video id is sent.
Lyrics can show on Colorful or Moving backgrounds made from the song's cover, full screen and in the pane beside the song, from the lyrics menu or Settings > Lyrics. Moving isn't offered on Linux.
The Up next and lyrics pane in the full player now takes its colour from the song's cover. Side pane colors from the cover, in Settings > Music, turns it back to the theme's colours.
The buttons along the top of the full player now sit on their own tinted background as a group, so they stay visible on bright covers. A pressed button widens and squares its corners, as on Android, and switched-on buttons fill with the player's colour.
Full-screen lyrics over the Immersive background with the Player lyrics background now sit on a blurred cover instead of the sharp photo, so the lines stay readable.
The lyrics menu is shorter and tidier: actions sit in one row of buttons, alignment and background are button groups, and each switch takes one line, with the Romanization options under Romanization. The full explanations stay in Settings > Music.
Animated covers show for many more songs: when Apple's first answer is a release with no loop, Flow looks at the song's other releases, a music video is looked up under its song's album, and a busy service is asked again twice. Songs saved as having no animated cover are asked about again.
With the Immersive player background, the animated cover now plays as the background, as on Android, instead of never showing. It holds still behind full-screen lyrics.
Animated covers play again. Apple names a loop's video segments relative to its playlist, and through Flow's local proxy every one of them was asked for at the wrong address, so no loop ever started.
Lyrics in media controls, in Settings > Lyrics, shows the current line as the song title in your system's media controls and lock screen, with long lines in parts, repeats counted and notes during breaks. It is off by default and has its own timing slider.
The Podcasts category chip on Music Home now loads podcast shelves and episodes instead of showing an empty result.
Share lyrics as an image, as on Flow for Android: pick up to five lines in Music mode, then choose the card's colors from the cover, a Classic, Poster or Shape layout, a Fit, 1:1 or Story size, and square, framed or clear edges. Copy the card, save it as a PNG, or copy the lines as text with the song credit. Lines in any language wrap inside the card.

Player

Live chat and chat replay beside a video can be closed. Show chat brings it back, as does the chat button on the player, which now works outside fullscreen too.
The mini player's controls, its move handle and its Expand and Close buttons fade together after a few seconds of playback, as in the full player, instead of staying up while the pointer rests on it.
Scroll over any volume control to change the volume: the video player, Shorts, the music bar, the full music player and Play on.
Scroll over the ambient mode intensity slider in Settings to adjust it.
While muted, scrolling up unmutes to your saved volume and scrolling down leaves it alone.
Moving the music volume while muted no longer leaves the song silent.
Ambient mode now uses the same glow as Flow for Android, and it moves as one smooth image with no pulsing or lines.
With the ambient glow on, the glow above the video shows through the top bar instead of stopping at its edge. The bar turns solid again as soon as the video reaches it.
The glow around the player stays on when you switch Resize to Fill or Zoom.
A new switch, Glow around the player, spreads those colors past the player in every view. It is off by default, and it has its own brighter look in light themes.
Double-clicking the sides of a video seeks without pausing it first or flashing the pause icon. A single click now pauses about a fifth of a second later, so Flow can tell the two apart.
Double-clicking the side of a video now shows the same seek feedback as Flow for Android: that side of the video lights up and two arrows slide toward the seek. Keep clicking the same side to add more: +10, +20, +30. The arrow keys add up the same way.
Ambient mode can be turned on or off from the player gear menu, has an intensity slider in Settings, and can now be turned on under Linux, where it starts off.
Live streams start and play again.
You can seek back through a live stream and stay there. The time shows how far behind live you are, and the Live button brings you back.
A live stream that falls behind from buffering catches up on its own, unless you chose to seek back.
Drag the mini player anywhere in the window. It stays where you put it, including after a restart, and keeps its place when the window is resized.
Videos can now play above 1080p: 1440p, 4K and 8K in the quality menu really play at that resolution, using VP9 or AV1.
Auto now climbs as high as your connection allows, up to the top quality of the video. It keeps to one codec and leaves HDR for when you pick it yourself.
A default quality of 1440p or higher is now reached even with H.264 as the preferred codec, and 8K can be chosen as the default. Your phone gets 4K for that setting.
A new switch in Settings, Switch quality quickly, shows a new quality within a few seconds instead of after the loaded video plays out. It is off by default.
Videos now start at the quality you chose instead of looking soft for the first few seconds. This can make the first picture appear a little later. On a slower connection a video still starts quickly at a lower quality and steps up after a few seconds.
Auto now starts at a quality your connection can carry, based on the last videos you played.
When a video can't be decoded in AV1 or VP9, Flow carries on from the same spot in another codec, and remembers that for the video. This replaces about 30 seconds of black screen and a switch to a different source.
Preferred Codec in Settings greys out codecs this device can't play. A codec that keeps failing is greyed out too, with a Try again button, and comes back by itself after 30 days.
Linux: when a video plays sound but shows no picture, Flow now switches to another codec from the same spot, H.264 included. On Fedora, whose own H.264 decoder can't play most YouTube video, this means VP9.
Linux: if no codec shows a picture, the message now gives the install steps for your system (Debian and Ubuntu, Fedora with RPM Fusion, Arch), and the Fedora package now recommends gstreamer1-plugin-libav, the name Fedora uses today.
SponsorBlock now works in the pop-out player and for the next video in the mini player.
If SponsorBlock can't be reached, the next video plays without skips instead of skipping at the last video's times.
Rewinding to before a skipped segment skips it again, the same as Flow for Android. To watch it, seek inside the segment.
A video that falls back to its backup stream now keeps the audio you chose, usually the original, instead of playing an auto-dubbed language. The audio menu works on that stream too.
Original titles, in Settings under Content, keeps video titles in the video's own language instead of YouTube's automatic translation, on cards, Shorts, the queue and the watch page. It is off by default, and DeArrow titles still come first when DeArrow is on. A single video you download is named the same way (#377).
Audio Track Language in Settings now works. Videos with several audio tracks start in your language, and fall back to the original when it isn't offered. The choice also syncs with your phone.
Autoplay is now two switches, as on Android. Autoplay queued videos keeps a playlist or queue going, and Autoplay related videos decides whether a suggestion plays after it, so a queue can run on with no random videos.
An optional Autoplay delay shows an Up next card with Cancel, Restart and Play now. It is off by default, and the player's settings menu has an Autoplay switch.
Comments now open in the fullscreen side panel, from a new button on the fullscreen controls.
Comments can be sorted by Oldest and Timed. Timed lists comments by the moment in the video they point at, and Follow the video moves the list along as it plays.
Remember speed per channel starts each channel at the speed you last chose, and Play music at normal speed starts music videos at 1x. A channel's speed comes first, and neither changes the default for the next video.
The player's settings menu has Resize with Fit, Fill and Zoom. Shift+N plays the next video and Shift+P the previous one.
SponsorBlock has every action Android has: Skip automatically once, Show a skip button, Notify, Mute, Show in seek bar and Disable. Your choices sync with your phone.
New SponsorBlock types Hook and Highlight. A highlight is marked on the seek bar and can offer Jump to highlight as the video starts. Segments submitted as a mute are muted instead of skipped.
Subtitle timing moves captions earlier or later in steps, for each video. Add an SRT or VTT file from the subtitles menu or by dropping it on the player, and Flow remembers it for that video.
Subtitle style adds window color and opacity, edge styles, custom colors and a position for fullscreen.
Preferred subtitle language now lists every language and has No preference, which syncs with your phone. The transcript has a search field.
Volume boost now works: with it on, the volume slider, wheel and arrow keys go up to 200%. It is off by default and adds no extra sound processing until you pass 100%.
Adaptive player size now works: a vertical or narrow video gets a taller player on the watch page, capped to fit the screen. It is on by default, as on Android.
The Skip silence row is gone. It never worked here, and a browser player can't remove silence the way Android does.
A video picks up where you left it from half a second in, and starts over only in the last 1.5 seconds or past 98%, as on Android.
Moving through a queue starts each video from the top. Picking one yourself still resumes it.
A queue moves past a video that can't play and tells you, up to 2 in a row, then stops on the error.
Flow can offer the last unfinished video when it opens, in a small card that plays it in the mini player or opens it. Continue watching mini player in Settings turns it off.
The mini player comes in three sizes. A thin progress bar stays at the bottom of the video when the controls hide, and clicking the time switches to what's left.
Optional frame step buttons while paused and a paid promotion label. The Save button shows Saved, Stats for nerds has more rows and Copy, and the description lists its tags and can be copied.
An Autoplay switch sits next to the quality on the player bar, and the Queue button only shows when there's a queue.
When YouTube stops serving Flow's main playback client, Flow gets a new visitor identity and switches to the TV client first, instead of a web client that stopped videos about a minute in. A stream that has failed is never reused for the next try.
Remote signature fallback, in Settings > Network, is now on by default, as on Flow for Android: the TV client's streams are signed and only PipePipe's public decoder can solve them. It never receives the video id.
When YouTube refuses a video's stream partway through, Flow fetches the same file from another client and carries on from the same byte, so the video keeps playing instead of stopping or reloading.
The video title no longer sits above the seek bar, where it repeated the title under the video. It shows there in fullscreen, where the Fullscreen Title switch is now on by default, and in the pop-out player.

Settings

Flow's windows can now shrink to 480 by 360, small enough for a half or quarter screen tile. In a narrow window the menu button opens the side menu over the page, as it does on the Watch page.
Linux: Settings > About now shows how Flow draws its window (the graphics tier and why, Wayland or X11, the package type and the WebKitGTK version) and which video decoders it found. Report on GitHub fills these into the bug form, which now also asks which Graphics compatibility setting you tried.
Settings rows now look like Flow for Android's: each row is its own surface, with a thin gap between rows and rounded group ends. Group titles are colored and no longer in capitals.
The FlowNeuro page is now called Your taste, the same name it has on Flow for Android. It stays in the same place and works the same way.
On the Settings page, the search box in the top bar searches settings, and its placeholder says so. It finds a setting by its name, description or a related word, the same way Flow for Android ranks them, then opens the right tab and points out the row.
A new switch in Appearance, Highlight new settings, puts a dot on settings added in an update and on their tab, for as long as you choose. It is off by default.
Settings has new pages for Keyboard Shortcuts, Lyrics, Subscriptions, History & Privacy, Digital Wellbeing and Language & Region, so Player, Music and Content & UI are shorter. Content & UI is split into Watch page, Watched videos, Blocked content and Shorts.
Scrollbars are hidden everywhere in the app. Every list still scrolls with the wheel, trackpad, keyboard or touch.
Flow can follow your computer's light or dark mode, with its own theme for each mode and a choice of dark or AMOLED, under Follow system in Appearance. It is off by default.
Appearance has a Font setting: Inter, or your system's font.
Pause watch history stops saving what you watch, in Settings > History & Privacy. Save search history, Search suggestions, Max history size and Auto-delete history live there too, with a button to clear your searches.
A new setting, App language, shows Flow in any of the 33 languages Flow for Android ships, using Android's translations. Text that has no translation yet stays in English, and English stays the default. Right-to-left languages mirror the layout outside the player.
A Show Music switch in Settings > Content & UI hides YouTube Music everywhere: the Music tab, music search, albums, music downloads and songs in your history and likes. Music links open as videos. Your albums, likes and history are kept, and local files still play.
Start page, under Navigation tabs, picks the page Flow opens on, such as Subscriptions. Open tabs from the last run still come back first, and reloading the window keeps the page you are on.
Double-click sides to seek, under Player, can be turned off. A double-click anywhere on the video then switches fullscreen.
Subscriptions remembers the group you picked last, across restarts, as Flow for Android does.

Downloads

Sort downloads by Newest, Oldest, Largest, Title or Channel. Each video shows its size and date.
New Download videos you open and Download liked songs switches in Settings > Downloads.
Find earlier downloads lists files Flow saved that the page has lost, by the tags in them. Tags for older downloads adds tags to MP4 and M4A files saved before Flow wrote them.
Deleting a download now offers Undo.
Player buttons, in Settings under Player, shows or hides each control on the player bar. The bar looks the same with all of them on, which is the default.

Shorts

Shorts work from the keyboard: Up and Down move between Shorts, Space or K plays and pauses, M mutes, and the arrows, J, L and the number keys seek.
A shelf or a channel's Shorts now carries on into more Shorts when it runs out, instead of stopping. Saved Shorts still ends where your list ends.
Home has a Shorts shelf, which Home Shorts Shelf in Settings turns off.
More like this, in a Short's More menu, teaches your recommendations and puts similar Shorts right after it.
A Short that links to a full video shows a chip that opens it. Double-click a Short to like it.
A Short with several audio tracks offers them in its settings, and the equalizer now applies to Shorts.
Subscriptions shows when the feed last refreshed and how many videos it checked. The count has its own switch.
A single Show Shorts switch in Settings hides Shorts everywhere, with an option to keep the Shorts tab on channels. Saved Shorts and history are kept.
With Show Shorts off, the side rail no longer links to Saved Shorts, matching the Library.
Hide watched videos is now separate for Home, Subscriptions and Shorts, and you choose when a video counts as watched.

Home

Videos from channels you follow show the channel's name again, and their view count on its own line, instead of the view count where the name belongs. Videos already saved are corrected when Flow updates.
Home has three new chips. Mixes builds queues from videos you liked or finished, Live shows streams on now, and Watched brings back videos worth seeing again.
A Subscriptions on Home switch keeps channels you follow out of Home. Clicking Home again scrolls to the top, then refreshes, and you can turn the refresh off.
Cards from a channel you often watch now say so under the title. Explore says plainly when YouTube is limiting requests.
Card menus add Play next, Details and Mark as unwatched.
Hover Previews, in Settings > Content & UI, previews a video while you rest the pointer on its card. Frames shows still frames. Video plays it in the card, muted with captions, with buttons to unmute and turn captions off, and a bar to seek with frame previews. Clicking the card carries on from there. It is off by default, because Flow asks YouTube for each video you rest on.

Search

Searching again from your history brings back the filters you used. Shorts is now its own chip, next to All.
New Unwatched, Watched and Recently uploaded chips, and 360, VR180, 3D and Location filters. A creator with recent uploads gets one card with their latest videos.

Notifications

Remind me on an upcoming video or premiere puts it in your notifications when it starts. A reminder missed while Flow was closed arrives at the next launch.
New Shorts from your subscriptions can be left out of alerts, with a Shorts switch in Settings. Several uploads since the last check now each get a notification.
In the notifications panel you can save a video to Watch later and undo a removal. New and Last 7 days sections join Today, Yesterday and Earlier.
Digital Wellbeing, its own page in Settings: a chart of your watch and listen time over the last week, plus break and bedtime reminders. Reminders are native notifications and only arrive while Flow is running.
The tray now shows and controls videos as well as music, and has a Continue watching item for your latest unfinished video.
Windows Jump List and macOS Dock menu: Search, Downloads, History and Music are one click away.
Downloads show their progress on the taskbar or Dock icon.
About has a Changelog with the notes of every release, and Open source notices listing the projects Flow is built on.
Flow looks for updates every 12 hours while it stays open, not only when it starts.

Local media

Local media: choose folders and play the videos and music in them. Search, sort, filter by length, quality and Unwatched, browse by folder, Continue watching, New marks, Play all and Shuffle.
Folders are rescanned at launch and on Rescan, in the background. Settings > Downloads holds the folder lists, and can hide voice notes and short audio.
Files stay on this computer: they don't sync, and playing them teaches no recommendations. A file Flow can't play says why, naming a sound format this computer can't decode.
Local songs show the lyrics in a .lrc file beside them or inside the file, and their covers. Local videos pick up subtitle files from their folder, and you can add one yourself.
A local video with no picture of its own shows a frame from the video.
A local file's menu has Details and Move to trash. A file in the trash can be put back from there.
Automatic backups run at launch and on a timer while Flow is open: daily, weekly or monthly, into a folder you pick, with the last run and Back up now in Settings. Each run replaces the last file of its type, as on Android.
Master backups are now the same zip Flow for Android makes, so a backup from either app restores on the other, brains and profiles included. Old Flow Desktop .json backups still restore. Proxy credentials and other private settings are never in a backup.
Export your watch history as YouTube-history JSON, and your subscriptions in NewPipe format.
Import from another app, chosen by the app you are leaving: a Google Takeout export, even split across several zips, with likes, playlists and Watch Later; YouTube Music playlist CSVs; NewPipe history and playlists from its backup; LibreTube subscriptions and playlists; Metrolist music playlists. Imports only teach recommendations the way Android does.
The Cache group under Network now shows the real size of artwork, lyrics and network caches, each with a limit and a Clear button. Artwork clears the next time Flow starts. The Media Cache Limit row is gone: Flow never stored streams on disk.

Linux

Links from the browser extension open the video in Flow from every Linux package, the AUR ones included, instead of only bringing the window forward.
Stable, Beta and Nightly .deb and .rpm packages now install side by side. Their commands are flow-desktop, flow-desktop-beta and flow-desktop-nightly, so pin Flow to your dock again after updating.
Flow is listed under Sound and Video in app menus with sharper icons, and the .rpm installs on openSUSE as well as Fedora.
The Flatpak can use the keyring, the tray, Discord and Show in folder. A new Linux help page covers packages, graphics, codecs, sync and moving from Beta to Stable.
Graphics compatibility keeps the GPU on current WebKitGTK. Compatible used to switch Flow to software drawing, which made scrolling and video stutter, and NVIDIA on Wayland started there by default.
Opening a link or the launcher while Flow is already running no longer counts as a failed start, so Flow stops slipping into slower graphics modes on its own.
When the page keeps crashing after it opened, the next launch uses a safer graphics mode.
On Wayland, the pop-out player no longer offers Pin and Settings no longer offers Always on top, since Wayland doesn't let apps keep a window above others. The Shorts menu hides Mini player where it can't open.
Arch Linux: the flow-desktop (built from source) and flow-desktop-bin (the release package) AUR packages now update with every release, betas included.
A new flow-desktop-git AUR package builds the latest development code. None of them installs the flow command, which belongs to another Arch package.

macOS

Flow on macOS now updates itself like on Windows and Linux. Earlier versions were never offered an update on macOS, so install this one by hand once.
When Flow runs straight from its disk image or from Downloads, About says to move it to Applications, the only place it can update itself.

Nightly builds

Nightly builds of Flow Nightly are now on a Nightly release on GitHub, so anyone can download them without a GitHub account. Each new build replaces the files there, and a checksum file lists them.
Flow Nightly now updates itself to the newest nightly build, on Windows, macOS and Linux. A nightly build installed before this change needs one new install by hand first.
The Nightly release and Flow Nightly's update window list what has changed since the last release, from the changelog of the next one.

Fixes

The rows on the About page that open something, such as Changelog, can be reached and opened with the keyboard.
Playlist cards show all four covers when two of the songs share a cover.
The onboarding topics and import steps can now be translated, and their wording is plainer.
Flow no longer says FlowNeuro anywhere: settings, backups, sync, import and the window title all call it your taste, as Flow for Android does.
Saved lyrics show where they came from in the lyrics menu and side pane, instead of an internal name like MemoryCache. Lyrics saved by an older version show no source until they are fetched again.
About links to the new website, flow-tube.org, and the Flow-Tube organisation on GitHub. Crash reports open an issue there too.
Scrolling up on the music bar can no longer leave an invisible player covering the app until a reload.
Cancel on a confirmation now really cancels. Deleting a playlist, deleting a custom theme and resetting SponsorBlock stats no longer go ahead anyway. Every confirmation now opens inside the app, with a clear title and button.
Removing a playlist from a card now always asks first. Deleting a playlist you made no longer offers an Undo, which only brought it back empty.
Scrolling with the wheel over the video on the Watch page now scrolls the page, so you no longer have to move the pointer off the video first.
Restarting Flow after an update no longer opens the link Flow was first started with a second time.
A restarted AppImage starts from your own environment instead of the old bundle's paths.
Flow opens in your theme from the first frame, instead of showing the default colours for a moment.
Downloading a Short now works, from the Shorts player and from a Shorts card. The download window names portrait videos by their real resolution, so a 1080x1920 Short is 1080p, and starts on it.
Search no longer shows videos and Shorts from channels you blocked, the channels themselves, or videos you marked Not interested.
Trending Region is now Content country, and search and recommendations follow it as well as trending. Before, only Explore, charts and Shorts did. YouTube Music's home still follows where you connect from.
Proxy settings now work. HTTP, SOCKS5 and SOCKS4 proxies, with an optional sign-in, carry video, music, downloads, thumbnails, sync servers and update checks. Devices on your network and YouTube's bot-check token minting stay direct, and changes apply to new connections.
DeArrow: a video nobody has submitted a thumbnail for now shows a frame from the video, like Flow for Android. Use a video frame in Integrations turns this off.
Retry with Proxy on a video that won't load now really does that, and only shows when you have set a proxy up.
The Flow Neuro page can block a channel from its favoured list, and now shows Shorts seen and your recent discovery searches.
Links open everything Flow for Android opens: flow://open?url= and a YouTube link on the command line lead to the video, Short, playlist, album, channel or artist. A watch link with a list plays with that playlist as the queue, except mixes and your own Liked and Watch Later lists. /shorts/ links open the Shorts player, and youtube-nocookie.com, piped.video and yewtu.be links work too.
When Flow's backend crashes, it keeps a report on your computer and offers it at the next launch, with a GitHub issue filled in if you choose to send it. Secrets and your home folder are taken out first, and the last report stays under Diagnostics.
Not interested and Don't recommend show in red in card menus, and Don't recommend names the channel.
Arabic, Persian and Urdu lay out properly now. The side rail, the settings drawer, menus, switches, sliders, toasts and the back, forward and see-all arrows all mirror, and menus open toward the page. The video player, every progress bar and the play controls stay left to right, as on Flow for Android.
Titles, channel names, descriptions and comments in another script keep their own word order, punctuation and ellipsis, so an Arabic title no longer loses its first word in English, and the reverse. Lines such as views and upload date, or a handle and subscriber count, keep each part in place.
Text you type in search and other fields follows the direction of what you type. On Linux, Flow uses Noto's Arabic fonts when they are installed, so Arabic letters keep their dots and joins.
The Subscriptions page no longer jumps while you scroll during a refresh. The feed you are reading stays on screen until the check of every channel finishes, cards keep their thumbnails when new videos arrive, and the video you are looking at stays in place when things above it change.

Flow-Tube/Flow-Desktop nightly Flow Nightly 2026-11-14 (428013a) on GitHub