SpringDeskChangelog
Every SpringDesk update, newest first. Updates are free and arrive automatically through the Microsoft Store. Found a bug? Email contact@springdesk.app or open an issue. Every report is read, and fixes ship as Store updates.
1.5.6
- Fixed: clicking a box's roll-up arrow twice quickly (a double-click) left the box open with none of its icons showing. A second click now turns the box back from wherever it is.
- Fixed: clicking another tab just after dragging a tab to a new place could make the dragged tab look selected while the other one's files showed.
- Cut and paste: if you skip or cancel at "Replace or Skip Files", what you cut can still be pasted somewhere else. It's used up only once it has all been moved.
- Files that keep changing, like a download in progress, now show up in their box within a second instead of only when everything has stopped.
- Scroll bars are easier to catch, and clicking above or below the bar scrolls a page, as in Windows.
- Moving through Settings and dialogs with the Tab key now shows which button or switch you're on.
- In a box, the menu key or Shift+F10 opens the menu of the selected icons, or the box's own menu if nothing is selected.
- If File Explorer is busy or stuck, SpringDesk keeps responding instead of waiting for it.
- Smaller fixes for smoothness and memory.
1.5.5
- The tray icon's menu has "Roll up all boxes" (or "Unroll all boxes" when they're all rolled up), and is in groups: making boxes, all boxes at once, SpringDesk itself, and quitting.
- New boxes are made from the tray icon's menu; a box's own right-click menu is only about that box now.
- The right-click menus of a box's title, its tabs and its empty space are in groups too, with "Open in File Explorer" always at the top.
- A box you drag stands out: it frosts, gets a ring in the accent colour and goes over the other boxes until it has settled into its place. Over another box's title, where it would join that box, it fades so you can see that title light up.
- Fixed: after dragging a box, a line showed inside its edge until the pointer left the box.
- Fixed: pushing a locked box that was rolled up squeezed its "Boxes are locked" hint into a heap of text.
1.5.4
- Fixed: programs opened from a box (WPS, a browser...) were counted as part of SpringDesk in Task Manager, so SpringDesk seemed to use over 1 GB of memory, and ending SpringDesk there closed those programs too. They now open the way they do from Windows' desktop, on their own.
1.5.3
- Fixed: right-clicking an icon sometimes showed no menu at all, mostly with a quick click on PCs with programs such as WPS that add to the menu.
- Easier box selection: only an icon's picture and name pick it up now. Press anywhere else in a box, also between and below icons, to drag a selection box.
- Boxes are now as far from the screen's edges as from each other.
- Fixed: after a file was dropped into a folder box, the box sometimes scrolled to the wrong place instead of to the file.
- The Recycle Bin's icon in a box now shows when it's empty or full, as on Windows' desktop.
- Files dragged from a folder box onto the empty desktop are moved or copied as Windows would (copied from another drive or with Ctrl).
- Fixed: after switching from a picture wallpaper to a plain colour, the boxes kept showing the old picture.
- Fixed: with "Enable SpringDesk" off, typing on the desktop right after SpringDesk started still opened its search.
- The edge of a box looks steadier on a busy wallpaper.
- Safer layouts: a layout file held by another program at start is backed up before anything is saved over it, and a failed save is tried again.
- Smaller fixes: an icon that couldn't be shown for a moment is fetched again; renaming report.txt.txt with extensions hidden keeps its extension.
- Fixed: a strip of wallpaper across a box rolled up under the pointer.
- Much less memory used while you're not using the boxes.
1.5.2
- Fixed: box titles and icon names no longer switch between white and black when a box moves, rolls up or sits over a brighter patch of the wallpaper. All boxes on a screen now share a steady text colour, with a firmer halo over brighter or busier parts.
- Fixed: switching from a static wallpaper to a live wallpaper no longer leaves the old wallpaper inside the boxes' borders, and the borders no longer lag behind a live wallpaper.
- Fixed: rolling up a box no longer pulls the bottom edge up or leaves a thin line across the title bar.
- Lower memory use.
1.5.1
- Fixed: with a live wallpaper on two screens, the boxes on one screen could suddenly turn into plain grey panels. When one screen's background can't be read for a moment, its boxes now keep the last picture they had (or use the wallpaper file).
- Fixed: with a live wallpaper, SpringDesk's memory use could keep growing over time.
1.5.0
- New look for the boxes: glass. At 100% transparency (the new default) a box is completely clear, with no tint and no blur; only its edge shows, bending the wallpaper a little like the rim of thick glass, with a fine line of light. On a busy wallpaper the edge is a little firmer so the box keeps its shape.
- Settings › Appearance now has one Transparency slider instead of "Glass" and "Opacity". Lower it and the glass frosts over, which makes text easier to read on a busy wallpaper. Your current look is carried over.
- Boxes stay calm until you point at them: then the rim lights up, brightest on the side nearest the pointer, and a soft light follows it.
- A rolled-up box is just its name on the desktop. Point at it and its glass strip appears.
- Names are white with a soft dark halo, as on Windows' desktop, so they stay readable on any wallpaper; over a very light wallpaper they turn near-black.
1.4.9
- Fixed: on some PCs Windows' own desktop icons kept blinking on and off behind the boxes. SpringDesk no longer changes Windows' "Show desktop icons" setting, and puts back any change 1.4.8 made.
- Fixed: files dragged from elsewhere (another computer, a remote session) can be dropped on the empty desktop again.
- Something made with New on the desktop still opens in its box ready to rename, and now only then: files saved or downloaded to the desktop don't start renaming.
- "Show desktop icons" in the desktop's View menu works as before 1.4.8: off, it hides the boxes too.
- Quitting always brings Windows' icons back at once, even when File Explorer is busy.
1.4.8
- Switching SpringDesk off, or quitting it, puts Windows' own desktop icons back exactly where they were. New files go where Windows puts new icons.
- Windows' icons are now hidden with Windows' own "Show desktop icons" setting: nothing on the empty desktop can touch them, and New on the desktop menu always works. Ticking "Show desktop icons" switches SpringDesk off; unticking it switches it on.
- Something you make on the desktop (New, Ctrl+Shift+N) opens in its box with its name ready to type.
- One selection on the whole desktop, as in Windows.
- Icons follow when you change which program opens a file type.
- Right-click menus show the moment you release the button.
- No more freeze when File Explorer restarts, and no more getting stuck when quitting with a menu open.
- The tray menu matches the boxes' menus. Smaller download.
1.4.7
- Settings › General › Desktop now has one switch: Use SpringDesk. Turn it off to get Windows' own desktop back without quitting. Your boxes and layout are kept, and you can turn it on again any time; the tray menu has the switch too. It replaces the two switches for desktop icons, whose combinations were confusing.
- A document opened from a box no longer sometimes stays behind other windows (seen with programs that keep one window, like WPS).
1.4.6
- Dragging files into and out of boxes follows the Windows rules: within a drive they move; to or from another drive, a USB stick or a network folder they're copied. Ctrl copies, Shift moves.
- Fixed: on some PCs, This PC never appeared in a box. SpringDesk now shows exactly the system icons Windows shows and follows the desktop icon settings right away.
- Safety: after a click on the empty desktop, Ctrl+A, Delete or Enter could act on Windows' hidden desktop icons. They no longer do.
- If SpringDesk is ended in Task Manager, Windows' desktop icons come back at once.
- Search finds Chinese names by full pinyin too, and keeps what you typed if you look at another window.
- In a box: Shift+arrow keys select several icons, Ctrl+Shift+N makes a folder, Alt+Enter shows Properties.
- During the free trial, Settings › About shows the days left and a Buy button.
- Smaller fixes: downloads in progress wait quietly in the Inbox; network shortcuts no longer slow things down off the network; old logs are cleaned up.
1.4.5
- Fixed: on some PCs the Microsoft Store version never managed to save your boxes, so after a restart or an update they went back to an older layout. They're saved now, and the first start of this version brings back the boxes as you last left them.
- Dropping files into a box from other programs now works the way it does on the Windows desktop, including drags that can only be copied. They stay in the box you drop them on.
- Ctrl+Z in a box undoes your last file operation (move, rename, delete…), as on the desktop.
- After renaming, the box keeps the keyboard, so the next key works there.
- If SpringDesk ever has to use a backup of your layout, it tells you which day's.
1.4.4
- Fixed: choosing New from the empty desktop's right-click menu showed "File System Error (16389)". It works again.
- Fixed: new spreadsheets and presentations made with New (WPS) now go to their tab in the sorting box. A new file that only shares its name with an old deleted one is treated as new.
- A file in the sorting box renamed to another type moves to the tab for its new type.
- Drag a file out of a box onto the empty desktop and it flies into the Inbox, which flashes it, so you can see where it went.
- Renaming shows the whole name, however long, as on the Windows desktop.
- If the layout file is ever damaged (say, by a power cut), your boxes come back from the latest daily backup.
- When SpringDesk quits, Windows' own desktop icons come back first, so the desktop is never left empty.
- Diagnostics no longer note other programs' window titles, and leave your user name out of paths.
- Smaller fixes for renames that only change capitals, downloads that arrive while you drag files, and previews of pictures and zips.
1.4.3
- After you've used SpringDesk for a few days, it asks once whether you'd like to rate it in the Microsoft Store. You can also rate it any time from Settings › About.
1.4.2
- Copy a file in a box and paste it into the same tab: you get "name - Copy", as in File Explorer.
- While renaming, dragging across the name selects text instead of picking up the icon.
1.4.1
- Resize a box from its corners too, not just its edges.
- Boxes can be much smaller: down to 2 icons wide and 1 row tall.
- New frosted glass (Settings > Appearance > Glass): the wallpaper behind a box melts into soft, bright colour, so a busy wallpaper no longer shows through. It follows live wallpapers too.
1.4.0
- First release in the Microsoft Store, with a 7-day free trial.
Before the Microsoft Store
Versions 1.0 to 1.3 (October 16–17, 2026) were early free builds on GitHub. They are no longer available; the Store version replaced them and takes over their layouts.