Free & open source · 100% local · no telemetry
Moved a folder into the void? Overwrote the good draft? Deleted the wrong thing? StepWind records what happens on your drives and lets you step back — one click, no cloud, no git, no panic.
Windows 10 (1809+) or 11 · x64 & ARM64 · MIT · verify your download
The real thing — a plain-English timeline of your machine, with the process that did it and the button that undoes it.
A flight recorder for the whole machine. A time machine for the folders that matter.
StepWind reads the change journal on every drive — no folder scanning — and shows a timeline anyone can read: "Explorer moved Thesis to Archive". Moves, renames, and deletes reverse with one click; bulk operations undo as a batch.
Chosen folders get continuous version history — deduplicated and compressed, so a lightly-edited 2 GB file doesn't cost 2 GB per save. Roll any file back to any earlier save, even after it was overwritten and deleted. Any filesystem, removable drives included.
Restores land next to your current file, never over it. Undo refuses an occupied path. Low disk pauses capturing loudly instead of failing silently. And nothing is protected until you say so — onboarding asks, it doesn't grab.
A built-in MCP server lets Cursor, Claude, and friends checkpoint a file before a risky edit, diff exactly what changed, and restore — read + additive only. An agent gets the time machine, never the shredder.
Optional AES-256-GCM at rest — contents and, if you want, even the index of names and dates. An exportable passphrase recovery key means encrypted history survives an OS reinstall.
One account can't browse, restore, or purge another's history — enforced in the service, not hidden in the UI. Updates are fail-closed: checksum + signature verified, or they don't run.
A background service starts recording immediately. You pick which folders get version history — pre-checked suggestions, zero silent grabbing. Then it disappears into the tray.
A folder vanishes into the wrong place. A save clobbers the good version. A script — or an AI — deletes more than it should. It happens to everyone; usually it costs an afternoon.
Press Ctrl+Shift+Z, find the moment, click Undo — or open the file's history and bring back any earlier save. Thirty seconds, not thirty minutes.
AI tools edit files fast — and sometimes wrong. StepWind gives them a time machine, with guardrails welded on.
latest: vs current: after, restore on regret, and undo their own bulk file moves.Every release ships a SHA256SUMS.txt. Check your download in PowerShell:
(Get-FileHash .\StepWind-1.0.0-setup.exe -Algorithm SHA256).HashThe full trust story — update verification, IPC authorization, encryption design, and known limitations — lives in SECURITY.md.
No. History lives on your own disk, encrypted if you choose. No cloud, no account, no telemetry. The only network call is checking GitHub for updates — verifiable in the source, and you can turn it off.
The service idles on the change journal — a log the filesystem already writes — instead of scanning folders. Captures are debounced, deduplicated, and compressed in the background. If capturing ever pauses (low disk), it says so instead of quietly eating resources.
Versions are content-deduplicated and compressed, retention thins old versions to hourly → daily → gone, and there's a hard size cap you control plus a low-disk guard that pauses capturing before your drive fills.
No — and a tool that claims otherwise is guessing. StepWind protects from the moment it's installed: saved versions restore even after deletion, and recorded moves/renames reverse.
Each Windows account's history is isolated — one account can't browse, restore, or purge another's through StepWind. Enforced in the service, not just the UI.
Windows Settings → Apps, like anything else. The uninstaller stops the service, removes the app, and asks what to do with your stored history — nothing is deleted silently.
MIT licensed · no upsells · no “pro” tier