About ExpanDrive.
ExpanDrive started in 2004 making cloud storage feel local on the desktop. Twenty-plus years later, it's free for personal use, backed by Files.com, and runs on every cloud and every OS.
— What ExpanDrive is
The desktop tool that feels like infrastructure.
ExpanDrive is a desktop application that connects your cloud storage accounts and makes them available as local drives. It works with Amazon S3, Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, SharePoint, Box, Backblaze B2, Wasabi, Nextcloud, SFTP, WebDAV, and more — giving you seamless access to every file without syncing or re-uploading.
The original idea — back in 2004 — was simple. Browser interfaces are slow. Sync clients fill your disk. There ought to be a way for cloud storage to just appear in Finder or Explorer the way a USB drive does. So we built it. Twenty-two years later, that’s still the job.
— The road here
Twenty-two years, five chapters.
- 2004
ExpanDrive begins.
A small developer team builds the first version of ExpanDrive to mount SFTP and remote servers as local drives on macOS. The category — "cloud as a drive" — barely exists yet.
- 2008–2014
Cloud providers join one by one.
As Amazon S3, Dropbox, Google Drive, Box, and OneDrive launch and grow, ExpanDrive becomes the way to mount each one as a native drive — alongside SFTP, FTP, WebDAV, and the rest of the protocol set.
- 2020–2023
Apple Silicon, File Provider, modern macOS.
Apple's new File Provider extension and Apple Silicon transition reshape what a macOS desktop tool can be. ExpanDrive rebuilds on top of it — no kernel extensions, native on M-series Macs, full Finder integration.
- January 2024
Files.com acquires ExpanDrive.
Files.com — the File Orchestration Platform used by 4,000+ businesses including Equifax, Rag & Bone, Cognizant, and Michelin — acquires ExpanDrive from the prior owner. A transition period begins; the prior team works with Files.com through the handover.
- April 2025
Relaunch. Free for personal use.
Files.com completes the transition, takes over support and engineering, and relaunches ExpanDrive under a new licensing model — free for personal use, free for teams up to 10. The prior owner is no longer involved. The release cadence picks up: Linux improvements, a Server Edition refresh, new cloud connectors (Google Cloud Storage, OneDrive for Business, FTP), and the ExpanDrive 7 release line.
- Now
22 years in.
ExpanDrive is the longest-running cloud-as-a-drive tool in the category. Free for everyone using it solo and teams up to 10 users. Same desktop integration, every cloud, every OS, every year.
— Why it's free now
Acquired in 2024. Free since April 2025.
Files.com acquired ExpanDrive in January 2024. The transition wrapped in April 2025, and at that point the product became free for personal use. Not a trial. Not a freemium-light. Free for everyone using it solo and teams up to 10 users. Files.com sells its enterprise File Orchestration Platform to IT teams at 4,000+ businesses — bringing a beautifully simple desktop tool to everyone who needs one is the strategy, not a temporary promo.
ExpanDrive is built by Files.com.
The cloud connectors mounting your drive on macOS, Windows, and Linux are the same ones that run on Files.com's high-performance cloud File Orchestration Platform — used by 4,000+ businesses including Equifax, Rag & Bone, Cognizant, and Michelin, where petabytes of data move every month.
Try it free.
Mount everything.
Free for personal use. Runs on every Mac, PC, and Linux box built in the last decade.