Drive Desktop

Windows

Addon

Core

Setup

Windows

Prerequisites

Make sure you have the following tools installed before running the project:

• NVM

• Python 3.10

• Node.js 24

nvm install 24
nvm use 24

• node-gyp

npm install -g node-gyp

• Visual Studio (not VS Code)

Environment variables

Before running the application for the first time, you must create a .env file.

• Copy the template file: cp .env.template .env
• Fill in the required environment variables in .env.

Install and run

Fetch packages/core, which is a git submodule pointing at the internxt/drive-desktop-core repository, then build it — it has its own node_modules and is not an npm workspace, so the root install can't build it for you:

git submodule update --init --recursive
cd packages/core && npm ci &&cd ../..
npm run build:core

Initialize the development environment:

npm run init:dev
npm run clamav # optional

Start the application:

npm run start

Troubleshooting

Electron Builder cannot create symbolic links

When running npm run package, Electron Builder may fail while extracting winCodeSign with an error similar to:

ERROR: Cannot create symbolic link: The client does not have a required privilege.

Enable Developer Mode in Windows Settings > System > For developers. Then clear Electron Builder's incomplete winCodeSign cache from PowerShell:

Remove-Item"$env:LOCALAPPDATA\electron-builder\Cache\winCodeSign"-Recurse -Force

Run npm run package again. Alternatively, run the terminal as Administrator.