Everything you're likely to want to know before trying FileGriffon.
FileGriffon periodically re-hashes the files in your monitored vaults using XXH3-64 (via xxhash), a fast, collision-resistant hashing algorithm. It uses a two-pass approach: a lightweight "head hash" (based on file metadata plus, for large files, the first 256 KB of content) for quick change detection on every scan, and a "full hash" over the entire file for definitive verification. If a file's content changes, or a file goes missing or gets moved/renamed, FileGriffon flags it. It can't know whether a change was something you did on purpose (like editing or re-exporting a file) or actual corruption, so it surfaces every unexpected change for you to review rather than deciding for you. Alerts show up via the tray icon, an OS notification, and the dashboard's event feed; email and ntfy push notifications are also available as a Pro feature.
Yes. FileGriffon can generate PAR2 parity data for your files (per-file, not pooled across the vault), with a choice of redundancy levels: Light (5%), Standard (10%, the default), or Archival (20%). If corruption is detected, FileGriffon can use that parity data to repair the file in place, to a different destination, or extract a clean copy without touching the original, and it checks file size before attempting a repair, since PAR2 can only fix partial, same-size damage. PAR2 generation is available on the Free tier at reduced (Light, 5%) redundancy only; Standard and Archival levels require Pro.
No. File scanning, hashing, corruption detection, and PAR2 repair all run entirely locally on your machine; your file contents and paths never leave your computer. If FileGriffon makes any use of the internet, it's only for licensing purposes and optional, opt-in telemetry, and that telemetry only ever contains anonymized information about app usage, never anything relating to your data.
Free gets you all of FileGriffon's core protection on one actively-monitored vault: file scanning, corruption/missing/move detection, database encryption, scheduling, OS notifications, and PAR2 repair at Light (5%) redundancy. Pro adds unlimited vaults, email and ntfy alert notifications, SMART drive health monitoring, report export, and Standard (10%) or Archival (20%) PAR2 redundancy levels. A one-time Lifetime purchase gets you everything in Pro, plus all future updates, for a single payment instead of a recurring subscription.
FileGriffon is designed for both Windows and macOS. Windows is the first platform to ship, macOS version is under development.
FileGriffon offers a free tier, a yearly Pro subscription, and a one-time Lifetime purchase, plus a free trial of the paid features. See the pricing page for current plans and rates.
Nothing is deleted. If you drop from Pro back to Free and you have more than one vault, the extras are simply paused: monitoring stops on them, but their data and history stay intact until you're back on a paid plan or you free up your one Free-tier vault slot. More generally, FileGriffon never deletes your files under any circumstance, lapsed subscription or otherwise. Deleting user files isn't a feature FileGriffon has at all: even when a corrupted file is repaired, the old copy is kept and renamed aside rather than removed, and this is a deliberate safety principle, not an oversight.
Yes. Each vault you add, whether a whole drive (Pro feature), a specific folder, or even a single file, is scanned and scheduled independently, and you can add as many as your plan allows (one on Free, unlimited on Pro/Lifetime).
A Vault is whatever you choose to monitor: a whole drive, a specific folder, or a single file. Each Vault has its own label, scan schedule, and parity/repair settings, so you can treat different data differently, for example an Archival PAR2 redundancy level on an irreplaceable photo archive and lighter settings elsewhere.
It runs as a background service with a system tray icon, and that's what keeps monitoring your files. Closing the dashboard browser tab doesn't stop it, only exiting the tray icon does. It doesn't monitor while your computer is off, so scans naturally resume on schedule once it's back in the background. Auto-starting with Windows login is an optional toggle, not on by default. You could technically shut the daemon down and leave it off, but doing so defeats most of what FileGriffon is for, since none of its protection works while it isn't running.
Normally no. FileGriffon recognizes a moved or renamed file (matched by size and content) as a single "moved" event rather than treating it as a deleted file plus a new one, so it doesn't falsely alarm on routine reorganizing within a Vault. In less common cases, for example if a lot of time passes between the move and the next scan, it may briefly show up as a missing file and a new file instead of a clean move; this doesn't affect your data, just how the event is logged.
FileGriffon is built for anyone who keeps files they'd hate to lose, whether they're truly irreplaceable or would just be a real pain to recreate or track down again: photographers and videographers with large shoots, archivists and NAS/home-server users with long-term collections, and other creative professionals sitting on sizable libraries of original work. More broadly, it's for anyone storing data on a drive over the long haul, since bit rot and silent file corruption can happen to any drive without you noticing until it's too late.
No. It detects corruption, missing files, and moves/renames, and (with parity protection enabled) can repair certain kinds of damage. It doesn't copy your files anywhere else. Keep real backups separately: parity data protects against partial corruption, not against losing the drive entirely.
Missing means FileGriffon can no longer find a file it was tracking. Corrupt means the file is still there, but its content hash no longer matches what was recorded, meaning something changed it unexpectedly.
Use the Accept action on that file/event so FileGriffon treats the new content as the new known-good baseline. This also triggers parity regeneration for that file if parity protection is on.
Every file needs a full hash the first time it's seen. Later scans are much faster because most files haven't changed and only need the cheap "head hash" check, unless it's their turn in the Auto full-recheck cycle.
There's no recovery: it's a one-way key derivation. You'll need to disable/re-enable encryption (starting fresh) if the passphrase is truly lost. See Security & Encryption.
Only if you export your Cross-Machine Recovery Key first and deactivate your license on the old machine before switching. See Migrating to a New Machine for the full step-by-step; skipping it means new hashes won't match old ones, since they're keyed per-install.
No: it's expected for an app that touches whole drives and generates parity/encrypted data. See Troubleshooting for what to expect and how to verify a release build yourself.