Dokan Library

Dokan Library
Developer(s)	Dokan-dev
Stable release	2.2.1.1000 / January 20, 2025; 3 months ago
Repository	github.com/dokan-dev/dokany/
Written in	C, C++, C#, PowerShell, JavaScript
Operating system	Microsoft Windows
Platform	IA-32, x64, Cygwin, MinGW
Type	Virtual file system, Fuse
License	LGPL and MIT
Website	dokan-dev.github.io

Dokan (Japanese: ドカン [土管?], "earthen pipe") is a software interface for Microsoft Windows that lets programmers create virtual file systems without writing a kernel-level driver. This is achieved by running file system code in user space while the Dokan kernel driver translates the request for Windows Kernel. It offers compatibility with the FUSE file system by using a wrapper that can be built with Cygwin and MinGW.

Dokan is free software released under the terms of the LGPL and MIT License.

History

The Dokan project was originally created and maintained by Hiroki Asakawa from 2007 to 2011, up to version 0.6.0. It was hosted on Google Code.^[1] Asakawa was supported by a 2006 grant from the Japanese Information-technology Promotion Agency [ja] on a related subject.^[2]

Forks

DokanX

From around 2013, it was maintained by the community on a fork called DokanX.^[3]

Dokany

As the development of DokanX slowed in 2014, the French company ISLOG took over with its own fork called Dokany, actively maintained by Adrien Jund (aka "Liryna Stark") and formerly used to be co-maintained by Maxime Chamley. The drivers are now code signed by this company.^[4]

End-user uses

Dokan may be installed by end-user installed applications such as Drill Disk.^[5]

How to access iPhone

iPhone users may be able to access their iPhone via Dokan on Windows in a similar way that FUSE can for Unix-like operating systems.^[6]

Developer uses

Dokan is particularly useful for writing to a Virtual File System without requiring Windows Kernel knowledge. It gives one the ability to mount a virtual hard drive that contains whatever the developer wants to show, making it an alternative to the professionally developed CBFS Connect library. It can be absolutely virtual using memory like a ramdisk or show remote data like FTP, SSH, Samba, and databases as local storage that can be listed, read, written, and deleted.

Dokan is written in C. It provides bindings in .NET, Java, Ruby, Delphi, and Rust.

Example uses

DokanCloudFS: Access to different cloud storage services as virtual driver (OneDrive, Google Drive, MEGA, ...).
Dokan SSHFS: SSH File System
MLVFS: Magic Lantern Video File System
Win-SSHFS: SSH with SSH.NET File System
encfs4win Archived 2011-07-04 at the Wayback Machine: Encryption File System
Opendedup CDFS: Deduplication Based File System
Dokan NFC: RFID / NFC File System
vramfs on Windows: VRAMFS on Windows - Create a file system in VRAM
kbfs: Keybase Filesystem (KBFS), a distributed filesystem with end-to-end encryption and a global namespace.

References

^ "Dokan". Google Code Archive. Archived from the original on 2018-06-27. Retrieved 2025-03-07.
^ "2006年度下期未踏ソフトウェア創造事業（未踏ユース）採択概要データ管理システム" [Summary of selections for the 2nd half of FY2006 MITOU Software Creation Project (MITOU Use)]. 独立行政法人情報処理推進機構（じょうほうしょりすいしんきこう). Archived from the original on 2021-01-19. Retrieved 2008-08-20. [(Independent Administrative Institution Information-technology Promotion Agency, Japan)]
^ "DokanX". GitHub. Archived from the original on 2024-05-13. Retrieved 2025-03-07. Dokanx is a Fork of Dokan 0.6.0
^ "Dokany". GitHub. Archived from the original on 2025-03-22. Retrieved 2025-03-07. Dokany is a fork of Dokan 0.6.0 with bug fixes, clean change history and updated to build with latest tools.
^ "Disk Drill Installs Dokan Library: What's it Used For?". windowsreport.com. 2024-06-27. Archived from the original on 2025-01-17. Retrieved 2025-04-07. … it's okay to delete Dokan Library and you can remove it just like any other application. However, by removing Dokan certain applications that rely on it, such as Disk Drill, might not work properly.
^ Fitzpatrick, Aidan (2025-04-27). "How to access iPhone files with a disk mount". reincubate.com. Archived from the original on 2025-03-23. Retrieved 2025-04-07. It was easy to mount the original iPod and access it liks a USB drive. It's possible to do that with an iPhone, too, although there are different approaches depending on the type of data you want to work with.

External links

[1] "Dokan". Google Code Archive. Archived from the original on 2018-06-27. Retrieved 2025-03-07.

[2] "2006年度下期未踏ソフトウェア創造事業（未踏ユース）採択概要データ管理システム" [Summary of selections for the 2nd half of FY2006 MITOU Software Creation Project (MITOU Use)]. 独立行政法人情報処理推進機構（じょうほうしょりすいしんきこう). Archived from the original on 2021-01-19. Retrieved 2008-08-20. [(Independent Administrative Institution Information-technology Promotion Agency, Japan)]

[3] "DokanX". GitHub. Archived from the original on 2024-05-13. Retrieved 2025-03-07. Dokanx is a Fork of Dokan 0.6.0

[4] "Dokany". GitHub. Archived from the original on 2025-03-22. Retrieved 2025-03-07. Dokany is a fork of Dokan 0.6.0 with bug fixes, clean change history and updated to build with latest tools.

[5] "Disk Drill Installs Dokan Library: What's it Used For?". windowsreport.com. 2024-06-27. Archived from the original on 2025-01-17. Retrieved 2025-04-07. … it's okay to delete Dokan Library and you can remove it just like any other application. However, by removing Dokan certain applications that rely on it, such as Disk Drill, might not work properly.

[6] Fitzpatrick, Aidan (2025-04-27). "How to access iPhone files with a disk mount". reincubate.com. Archived from the original on 2025-03-23. Retrieved 2025-04-07. It was easy to mount the original iPod and access it liks a USB drive. It's possible to do that with an iPhone, too, although there are different approaches depending on the type of data you want to work with.

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