We launched Envelop for Web and Android last June. Since then, we had around 1000 people trying it out. And it reached 10th place in the App Mining Ranking.

Going forward, our main goal is to keep Envelop as simple to use as possible. The app should not get in the way of the task you’re doing. Uploading a private file should be quick, safe and not interrupt your flow.

In Android, you can already upload a file from any app on your phone, by sharing it to the Envelop Android app. Now, on the web, we've built a browser extension, so you can share file without losing the context of what you’re doing.

Here's what it looks like:

Some great use cases for the Envelop browser extension:

• Your email client doesn’t allow you to attach files larger than 20MB
• Your messaging app doesn’t let you send a certain file type
• You’re filling in a form without a field to upload a file
• You can bypass those limitations by dragging the file you want to share onto the extension window and getting a link to send. Envelop ensures your files stay private and encrypted.

The browser extension supports Chrome, Firefox and Opera. Give it a try:

👉 Chrome
👉 Firefox
👉 Opera

Some details from under the hood

We opted for a window popup, instead of dropdown under the extension icon, so we could support file drag and drop.

The popup just opens a special version of the web app, designed for the small window. This has which has two advantages. It avoids needing to authenticate twice, once for the web and again for the extension. And updates are simpler, you instantly get the latest version of the app on the extension.

For cross-browser support, we relied on the Web Extensions APIs.