v1.8.0 Update — New signing key, backup your data before updating

[A-EDev]

Starting with v1.8.0, Flow uses a new app signing key. Android treats this as a different app, which means installing this update will require you to uninstall the old version first. This will delete your local data.

Before you update, do this:

1. Open Flow → Settings → Export Brain — this saves your recommendation profile
2. Open Flow → Settings → Export Subscriptions — if you have any
3. Note down any playlists or favorites you want to keep
4. Uninstall the old version
5. Install v1.8.0 from the releases page
6. Import your brain and subscriptions back through Settings

If you skip this, your watch history, recommendation data, and subscriptions will be lost. The app will still work, but you'll start fresh.

Why the key changed:

The previous signing key needed to be rotated for security reasons. This is a one-time thing. Future updates will install normally over v1.8.0 without any data loss.

What's new in v1.8.0:

This is a big release. The full changelog is in the release notes, but the highlights:

• Major recommendation engine upgrade (V8) — better discovery, smarter diversity, learns from more signals
• Subscription feed caching — no more redundant network calls every time you open the app
• Proper error messages when a video can't play — tells you the actual reason instead of a generic error
• VP9 and AV1 download fixes — downloads that failed during audio merge now work correctly
• Background playback stability improvements for Xiaomi, Samsung, and Huawei devices
• Fixed videos not resuming from where you left off
• Several other crash fixes and stability improvements

APK: https://github.com/A-EDev/Flow/releases/latest

If you run into any issues after updating, post in our subreddit r/Flow_Official or open an issue here.