A tour of the Windows configurator
The configurator is the window with the Filemote name on it. It is a control panel for the agent — the part that actually serves your files — and closing it does not stop that agent any more than closing a car's dashboard stops the engine.
That distinction explains most first-day confusion, so it is worth stating plainly:
- The window is where you sign in, choose folders and watch the log.
- The agent is a separate process. It keeps running when the window is minimised to the tray, and it is what the website talks to.
File Agent
The main tab, and where you spend your first five minutes.
Start, Restart and Stop control the agent. Start is the one that matters after installing: nothing serves files until you press it. The status line under the buttons says what the agent is doing rather than what you asked it to do — "Checking…", running, stopped.
Below that is the list of shared folders. Nothing outside this list exists as far as Filemote is concerned, and the agent refuses to start when it is empty.
- Add… picks a folder.
- Common folders adds Documents, Desktop, Downloads and Pictures in one click — the fast path for a first setup.
- Edit…, Delete and Clear do what they say.
The full rules — including what happens with .. and symlinks — are in
what the agent may reach.
Settings
Two sub-tabs:
- General — the account you are signed in as, the server address and port, and the transfer tuning fields. Export config and Import config write and read the whole configuration as a file, which is how you move a working setup onto another machine without retyping it.
- AI — which model to use, whether the AI service starts with the agent, and the knowledge-base settings. Setup AI installs the Python dependencies the first time.
Everything on these tabs maps to a field in app_settings.json, described in
configure the agent by hand.
Logs
Two views, and knowing which one to open saves time:
- Error Log — what went wrong. Start here.
- Request Log — what was asked of the agent and when. This is where you confirm that the browser's request actually arrived.
What each log contains, where the files live and what to attach to a support request is in reading the logs.
AI Chat
The same conversation you get in the browser, in the window, talking to the same local model. Stop interrupts generation without unloading the model. The deeper controls — downloading models, specialist slots, indexing — live in the AI Hub.
The plan badge
The tab bar carries a small badge with your current plan. It is a reminder rather than a control: what it grants is in plans and quotas.
Signing in, and staying signed in
You either pair the device with a code — the short path, and the one that keeps your password out of the agent — or sign in with an account password. Pairing is described in link a device to your account.
Log out clears the credentials from this machine. It does not remove the device from your account; that is done from the website.
Closing versus quitting
Minimising sends the window to the tray and leaves the agent running — which is what you want on a machine you reach remotely. Exiting closes the window; whether the agent keeps running depends on how it was started, which is the subject of autostart and running as a service.
Updated 2026-08-06