VlexorVlexor

Desktop App

Why Vlexor renders on your own machine, and how to download, install, and sign in to the desktop app.

Why a desktop app exists

Vlexor is edited entirely by command and by transcript — you type an instruction or delete words from an auto-generated transcript, and the Command Engine turns that into a structured edit plan. But turning that plan into an actual rendered video file means running a video encoder, and that is real, sustained work on the footage itself: reading every frame, decoding, filtering, re-encoding. Vlexor does that work on your own computer, inside the desktop application, rather than on a server. Your source footage and your rendered exports never leave your device — not during editing, and not during the final render. Only text ever reaches Vlexor's servers: the natural-language command you type, a transcript's words and timestamps, and small pieces of numeric metadata like a clip's duration. The video itself — the actual frames — is something Vlexor's cloud infrastructure never sees, stores, or has the ability to see, for any editing operation the app performs. This is why the desktop app exists at all: it is the only place capable of holding your raw footage and doing the encoding, so that promise can be true in practice and not just in policy.

  • Editing and rendering both happen locally, using a real video encoder bundled with the app
  • Only text — your typed commands and transcript words — is sent to Vlexor's servers
  • Your raw video and exported files are never uploaded to or stored on Vlexor's servers

Downloading Vlexor

The desktop app is downloaded from the Download page on vlexor.app, not from the Mac App Store or Microsoft Store. There is no separate account to create for the download itself — installers are served directly from Vlexor's own domain. Behind the scenes, the page reads the latest published release and streams the real installer file straight through, so you never need a GitHub account or see where the build is actually hosted. The page shows the current version number and the date it was released, and it tries to detect which operating system you're on so it can highlight the right card as recommended — though both installers are always listed and downloadable regardless of what you're browsing from. Each card also shows the installer's file size before you download it. If a build hasn't been published yet, the page says so plainly rather than offering a broken link.

  • macOS: a .dmg installer, built for Apple Silicon only
  • Windows: an .exe installer (falling back to .msi if no .exe is published for that release)
  • The version and release date shown on the page always match the latest published build

Installing on macOS

Open the downloaded .dmg and drag Vlexor into your Applications folder, as with any Mac app. The one thing that's different right now: Vlexor's macOS build is not yet signed with an Apple Developer certificate, so the very first time you open it, macOS Gatekeeper will refuse to launch it with a normal double-click. This is expected, not a sign anything is broken. To get past it, right-click (or Control-click) the app in Applications and choose "Open" from the menu, then confirm "Open" again in the dialog that appears. You only need to do this once — after that first approval, Vlexor opens normally like any other app, including double-clicking it or launching it from Spotlight. Because the build is Apple Silicon only, this whole flow only works on M1/M2/M3-and-later Macs to begin with.

  • Right-click the app in Applications and choose "Open" — do this once
  • Confirm "Open" again in the Gatekeeper dialog
  • After that, it launches normally, including with a regular double-click

Installing on Windows

Run the downloaded installer and follow the setup wizard as usual. Like the macOS build, Vlexor's Windows installer is not yet signed with a code-signing certificate, so Windows SmartScreen will likely show a blue "Windows protected your PC" warning screen the first time you run it, since it doesn't yet recognize the publisher. This is expected for an unsigned build, not a sign the installer is unsafe or corrupted. To continue, click "More info" on that screen, and then click the "Run anyway" button that appears. That only affects the installer itself — once Vlexor is installed, it launches and runs like any other Windows application, with no repeated warnings.

  • If SmartScreen appears, click "More info"
  • Then click "Run anyway" to continue the install
  • This only happens on the installer itself, not every time you open the app afterward

The bundled FFmpeg and ffprobe

Local rendering only works because Vlexor ships its own copy of FFmpeg and ffprobe inside the app — real, licensed, standard open-source binaries, the same tools most professional video pipelines are built on. FFmpeg does the actual encoding when you export, and ffprobe reads a file's format, resolution, duration, and codec the moment you import it. Because these are bundled directly with the installer, there is nothing separate for you to install, configure, or keep on your PATH — Vlexor works out of the box on a completely clean machine. The macOS build includes an Apple Silicon (arm64) version of these binaries, and the Windows build includes a 64-bit (x86_64) version; each platform's installer only carries the binaries it actually needs.

  • No separate FFmpeg install, download, or setup is required — it's already inside the app
  • FFmpeg handles rendering and export; ffprobe reads media info on import
  • The bundled binaries are matched to your platform automatically by the installer you download

Connecting the desktop app to your account

The first thing you see when you open Vlexor is a sign-in screen, using the same email and password as your account on vlexor.app — there's no separate desktop-only account, and no pairing code to enter. That said, the desktop app keeps its own independent session in its own local storage; it does not share your browser's cookies, so signing in on desktop is a separate step from being signed in on the web, even on the same computer. Once you're signed in, the desktop app loads your real projects — the same rows your web dashboard reads — so a project you pick to attach a local edit to is the same project either way, not a separate desktop-only copy. From then on, every request the desktop app makes to a Vlexor cloud feature — asking the Command Engine to turn a typed instruction into an edit plan, or sending a transcription request — carries your desktop session's access token as a Bearer credential in that request. Vlexor's servers verify that token to confirm the request is really coming from your account, the same way a browser's session cookie does for the web app, just carried explicitly instead of automatically.

  • Sign in with your existing Vlexor email and password — no separate desktop account
  • The desktop session is independent of any browser session, even on the same machine
  • Your real cloud projects appear in the desktop app once you're signed in
  • AI features (the Command Engine, transcription) authenticate each request with your session's access token

What stays local vs. what reaches the cloud

It helps to be concrete about the boundary. Importing a file, reading its duration and resolution, trimming, applying zoom or a color grade, and rendering the final export all happen entirely inside the desktop app using the bundled FFmpeg — none of that touches the network. When you type a command and ask the Command Engine to build an edit plan, what's actually sent to Vlexor's servers is the text you typed, the clip's duration, and an internal reference to which file it applies to — never the video's frames. The one feature that sends anything resembling media off your device is transcription for text-as-timeline editing: to produce a written transcript, the app first extracts a short, temporary, audio-only clip locally using ffmpeg — never the video track — and uploads only that small audio clip for speech-to-text. That extracted audio is discarded once transcription finishes; only the resulting words and timestamps are kept, as part of your project. At no point in any of this does your actual video file leave your machine.

  • Local, no network involved: import, trim, zoom, color grade, caption placement, and final render
  • Sent to the cloud as text only: typed commands, durations, and file references — for the Command Engine
  • Sent to the cloud as audio only, and only for transcription: a short, temporary, audio-only extract, deleted right after

System requirements

Vlexor's desktop app currently supports two platforms, each with a real hardware limit worth knowing before you download. On macOS, only Apple Silicon Macs are supported — M1, M2, M3, and newer. There is currently no Intel Mac build; an Intel-based Mac cannot run the app yet. On Windows, any 64-bit Windows 10 or Windows 11 machine is supported. There's no separate minimum for RAM or storage published beyond what's needed to hold your source footage and export comfortably — but because rendering is genuinely happening on your machine, more capable hardware will render faster, the same as with any other local video encoder.

  • macOS: Apple Silicon only (M1/M2/M3 and newer) — Intel Macs aren't supported yet
  • Windows: Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit

Staying up to date

The desktop app does not currently check for or install updates on its own. To get a newer version, return to the Download page — it always reflects whatever the latest published release is, along with its version number and release date, so you can tell at a glance whether you're on the current build. Reinstalling over an existing install is safe and expected: on macOS, just drag the new version into Applications the same way as the first install (approving it through Gatekeeper again, since each new build is a separate unsigned binary); on Windows, run the new installer the same way, clicking through SmartScreen again if it appears. Your account, cloud-synced projects, and anything already rendered are unaffected by installing a newer build, since none of that lives inside the app bundle itself.

  • No auto-update — check the Download page for the current version
  • Reinstalling is safe; your account and cloud projects aren't affected
  • Expect to approve Gatekeeper or SmartScreen again on each new unsigned build