Fliporium

Fliporium Docs

Everything you need to know, and not a word more than that.

On this page

Install & first run

There's nothing to install. Download fliporium.exe, put it somewhere — your Desktop, a folder you like, a USB stick — and double-click it.

The first time you run it:

Fliporium runs on Windows 10 and 11. It uses the same WebView2 runtime that ships with the system, so there's nothing extra to install.

Vocabulary

Fliporium uses a small set of words to describe small things. Don't worry, nothing is gatekept by it — the words just make conversations easier.

The Floor
The home view. The list of people and rooms visible to you, plus your composer at the bottom.
Marquee
The top strip. Brand on the left, your own info and Backstage on the right.
Room
A small private space you create and invite people to by link. Everyone with the link is in. Has its own message history.
Flip
To send a file. “Flip me that picture” = drag-and-drop or use the flip button.
Catch
To receive a flipped file. The file lands in your fliporium-data/inbox/ folder; click the file in chat to open it.
Backstage
Your settings drawer. Theme, sounds, twin pairing, invites, danger zone.
Twin
Another of your own devices, paired so 1:1 chats stay in sync across both.

Invite a friend

Inviting people means sharing a room's invite link. Anyone who has the link can open the room and join everyone in it.

Step 1 — make a room

  1. On The Floor, click the + next to Rooms.
  2. Give it a name. You're now in the room.

Step 2 — copy the invite link

At the top of the room, hit “copy invite link”. The link looks like https://fliporium.com/join#r=…&k=… and you can send it however you like — chat, email, in person.

The link carries the room's encryption key in the part after the #, which your browser never sends to any server. That's also why it's worth keeping private: anyone with the link can read the room. To cut someone off, make a new room and share its link instead.

Step 3 — what your friend does

  1. They download fliporium.exe from fliporium.com (the invite link's landing page walks them through it).
  2. They run it — Fliporium opens to The Floor.
  3. They paste your invite link into the “paste an invite link to join…” box and hit join. Within a couple of seconds you're connected.

No account, no key to manage — the link is the whole invite.

Chatting one-to-one

Click a name on the Floor to open a 1:1 conversation. Type at the bottom and press Enter to send.

Markdown works

On any message, hover to reveal a small toolbar

Rooms

A room is a group chat for a small set of people. Click + next to Rooms on the Floor, name it, pick members, and you're in.

Each room keeps its own message history. To bring someone new into an existing room, hit “copy invite link” at the top of the room and send them the link — anyone who has it can join. See Invite a friend for the full walkthrough.

Flipping files

Drag any file from your file explorer onto an open conversation. That's it. The file is transmitted directly between devices over the encrypted peer-to-peer channel, chunked, and lands on the other person's disk.

Twin mode (same person, two devices)

If you use Fliporium on, say, your laptop and your desktop, you can pair them as twins. Twinned devices automatically sync 1:1 chat history and flipped files between themselves, so it doesn't matter which one you sit down at.

  1. On device A, open Backstage → Twin Mode, type the hostname of device B, save.
  2. Do the mirror on device B (twin to device A).
  3. From then on, anything you send or receive on one is replayed to the other.

Hit Ctrl + K from anywhere in the app to open the search panel. Type at least two characters; Fliporium full-text searches every message you've ever sent or received, across every peer and every room, and ranks results by relevance. Click a result to jump to that message in context.

Backstage (settings)

Theme
Dark (default) or Light. Picks up your OS preference on first run.
Sounds
A short chime when a message arrives in a chat that isn't currently focused.
Twin Mode
Pair another of your devices. See above.
Invite a friend
A reminder of how to invite people: open a room and use its “copy invite link” button.
Help
Replay the Welcome tour anytime.
Danger zone — Burn Everything
Type burn everything and confirm to wipe this device's identity, chat history, flipped files, and settings. Other peers' copies are untouched. There is no undo.

What we can & can't see

What we can see, because we run the signaling server:

What we cannot see, ever:

Everything in the “cannot see” list is sealed with a key that lives in the room's invite link and never reaches us — so even the parts that can pass through our servers (a message waiting for someone offline, or a relay for a restrictive network) are ciphertext we can't open. There is more in our full Privacy statement.

Troubleshooting

Fliporium opens but says “starting…” forever

The app couldn't reach our signaling server. Check your internet. Look in fliporium-data/fliporium.log next to the .exe — the last few lines usually say why.

Someone is in my room but their dot is grey

They've been in this room but aren't connected right now. As soon as they open Fliporium and rejoin, the dot will turn green. Messages you send meanwhile wait (encrypted) and arrive when they're back.

I dragged a file onto a peer and nothing happened

Make sure they're connected (green dot). Files flip directly between devices, so both of you need to be online at the same time. If they're offline, flip it again once they're back.

I want to start fresh on this machine

Backstage → Danger zone → Burn Everything. Or close the app and delete the fliporium-data folder.

FAQ

Is this open source?

Yes — the full source is on GitHub at github.com/aivrar/fliporium-p2p, under the MIT license. You can read it, build it, or run your own signaling server.

Does Fliporium work on macOS or Linux?

Not yet. Windows is the v1 platform. The underlying networking is cross-platform, so other targets are technically possible.

Does it work on phones?

Not yet. A mobile companion is a longer-term thought.

What happens if the signaling server goes offline?

Peers already connected to each other stay connected — their traffic doesn't route through it. While it's down, new connections and rejoins can't be set up, and messages left for offline people wait until it's back. Its job is matchmaking and passing the encrypted handshake, not carrying your conversations.

Do my messages go through your servers?

Live conversations go straight between devices. The server only helps peers find each other. The exceptions are deliberately limited and always encrypted: a message you send while someone's offline waits (sealed) on the server until they reconnect, and on very restrictive networks your traffic may be relayed (still sealed) so a connection can happen at all. The room's key lives in its invite link and never reaches us, so we can't read any of it.

Can I run my own signaling server?

Yes. The signaling server is a small standalone program, and the app can be pointed at any instance. If you want to run your own friends-and-family deployment, get in touch.

That's the whole tour. Head back to the Fliporium homepage, or download Fliporium for Windows and start your first room.