FileMaker

The desktop app is based on a DOS application originally named FileMaker, which was then developed primarily for the Apple Macintosh and released in April 1985. It was rebranded as FileMaker Pro in 1990. Since 1992 it has been available for Microsoft Windows and for the classic Mac OS and macOS, and has cross-platform capabilities.

FileMaker Go, the mobile app, was released for iOS devices in July 2010.

FileMaker Server allows centralized hosting of apps which can be used on both the desktop and mobile apps. A cloud variant, named FileMaker Cloud, is hosted by Claris.

History

FileMaker began as an MS-DOS-based computer program named Nutshell, developed by Nashoba Systems of Concord, Massachusetts in the early 1980s. Nutshell was distributed by Leading Edge, an electronics marketing company that had recently started selling IBM PC-compatible computers.

With the introduction of the Macintosh, Nashoba combined the basic data engine with a new forms-based graphical user interface (GUI). Leading Edge was not interested in newer versions, preferring to remain a DOS-only vendor, and kept the Nutshell name. Nashoba found another distributor, Forethought Inc., and introduced the program on the Macintosh platform as FileMaker in April 1985. When Apple introduced the Macintosh Plus in 1986, the next version of FileMaker was named FileMaker Plus to reflect the new model's name.

Leading Edge published Nutshell 2.0 until September 1986, after which Nashoba marketed the software itself. In mid-1987 Forethought was purchased by Microsoft for the former's PowerPoint software. Microsoft expected to continue distributing FileMaker and deprioritize the competing Microsoft File, but Nashoba decided to self-publish the next version, FileMaker 4.

Purchase by Claris

Shortly after FileMaker 4's release, Apple Computer formed Claris, a wholly owned subsidiary, to market software. Claris purchased Nashoba to round out its software suite. By that point, Leading Edge and Nutshell had faded from the marketplace because of competition from other DOS- and later Windows-based database products. FileMaker continued to succeed on the Macintosh platform.

Claris changed the product's name to FileMaker II to conform to its naming scheme for other products, such as MacWrite II, but the product changed little from the last Nashoba version, with several minor versions following.

In 1990, the product was released as FileMaker Pro 1.0, and in September 1992, Claris released a cross-platform version for both the Mac and Windows. Except for a few platform-specific functions, the program's features and user interface remained the same.

By 1995, other than ClarisWorks, FileMaker Pro was the only well-performing product in Claris's lineup. In 1998, Apple moved development of some of the other Claris products in-house, dropped most of the rest, and changed Claris's name to FileMaker Inc., followed by a concentrated development of FileMaker alone.

In 2020, FileMaker International Inc. changed its name (back) to Claris International Inc. and announced the Claris Connect workflow software.

Later updates

Version 4.0, introduced in 1997, added a plug-in architecture much like that of Adobe Photoshop, which enabled third-party developers to add features to FileMaker. A bundled plug-in, the Web Companion, allowed the database to act as a web server. Other plug-ins added features to the interface and enabled FileMaker to serve as an FTP client, perform external file operations, and send messages to remote FileMaker files over the Internet or an intranet.

Version 5 introduced a new file format, which came with the file extension .fp5.

Version 7, released in 2004, introduced a new file format with the extension .fp7, supporting file sizes up to 8 terabytes (an increase from the 2 gigabytes allowed in previous versions). Individual fields could hold up to 4 gigabytes of binary data (container fields) or 2 gigabytes of 2-byte Unicode text per record (up from 64 kilobytes in previous versions). FileMaker's relational model was also expanded, offering multiple tables per file and a graphical relationship editor that displayed and allowed manipulation of related tables in a manner that resembled the entity-relationship diagram format. Accompanying these important changes, FileMaker Inc. also introduced a developer certification program.

In 2005 FileMaker Inc. announced the FileMaker 8 product family, which offered developers an expanded feature set. These included a tabbed interface, script variables, tooltips, enhanced debugging, custom menus, and the ability to copy and paste entire tables and field definitions, scripts, and script steps within and between files. Version 8.5, released in 2006, added an integrated web viewer (with the ability to view such things as shipment tracking information from FedEx and Wikipedia entries) and named layout objects.

FileMaker 9, released on July 10, 2007, introduced a quick-start screen, conditional formatting, fluid layout auto-resizing, hyperlinked pointers into databases, and external SQL links. FileMaker 10 was released on January 5, 2009, before that year's Macworld Conference & Expo, and offered scripts that can be triggered by user actions and a redesigned user interface similar to that of Mac OS X Leopard (10.5) applications.

FileMaker 11, released on March 9, 2010, introduced charting, which was further streamlined in FileMaker 12, released April 4, 2012. That version also added themes, more database templates (so-called 'starter solutions') and simplified creation of iOS databases. FileMaker Go 11 (July 20, 2010) and FileMaker Go 12 for iPhone and iPad (April 4, 2012) allowed only the creation, modification, and deletion of records on these handheld devices, whereas design and schema changes had to be made within the full FileMaker Pro application. FileMaker Go 12 brought with it multitasking, improved media integration, export of data to multiple formats and enhanced container fields.

FileMaker 13, released after the launches of iOS 7 and OS X Mavericks (10.9), first shipped in December 2013. The client and server products were enhanced to support more mobile and web methods of data access. FileMaker Go 13, the parallel iPad–iPhone product, became a single client for both devices, and the Server Admin tool now ran in HTML5, no longer requiring a Java app.

The FileMaker 14 platform released on May 15, 2015. It included FileMaker Pro 14, FileMaker Pro 14 Advanced, FileMaker Server 14 and FileMaker Go 14. This was followed by version 15 in May 2016 and version 16 in May 2017; both including equivalent Pro, Pro Advanced, Server and Go versions.

In late 2016, FileMaker began annually publicizing a software roadmap of incoming features already being worked on, as well as identifying features they are moving away from or may deprecate in the near future.

FileMaker Inc. had always had a hard time describing what FileMaker software was, because it covered a plethora of ground unrelated to databases; user interface, security, rapid application development tools, etc. At their annual developers conference in August 2018, FileMaker Inc. initiated a new marketing program called "Workplace Innovation Platform" to address the problem of its self-described software category.

FileMaker Cloud

On September 27, 2016, FileMaker Cloud was introduced, including a Linux server (CentOS), which was offered exclusively through the Amazon Marketplace. In November 2019, FileMaker Cloud was reintroduced as a software as a service product offered directly from Claris for FileMaker Pro 18.0.3, using the FileMaker Server Cloud 2.18 service on Amazon servers. Despite this, it was managed by Claris instead of through the Amazon Marketplace, and made use of the new FileMaker ID authentication.

Linux and Docker

In October 2020, Claris released a Linux version of FileMaker Server, first on CentOS (19.1) then on Ubuntu (19.2).

Version history

* (*) indicates both FileMaker Pro/FileMaker Pro Advanced (Developer Edition in v4-6) or FileMaker Server/FileMaker Server Advanced

FileMaker files are compatible between Mac and Windows. File type extensions are:

• .fm since FileMaker Pro 2.0
• .fp3 since FileMaker Pro 3.0
• .fp5 since FileMaker Pro 5.0 (including 5, 5.5, 6.0)
• .fp7 since FileMaker Pro 7.0 (including 7, 8, 8.5, 9, 10, 11 and FileMaker Go 1.0)
• .fmp12 since FileMaker Pro 12 (including 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, FileMaker 2023, and FileMaker 2024)

Self-running applications (runtime, kiosk mode) are platform-specific only.