KSE 5.6.0 Released - 17 May 2025

KeyStore Explorer 5.6.0 contains more than 50 new features, improvements and bug fixes. The highlights of this release are:

• A password manager for keystore passwords
• Extended JWT support (verification of JWTs and key export in JWK format)
• Signing of arbitrary files with PKCS#7/CMS and verification of those signatures
• Improvements for PKCS#12 (low level content viewer, same password for all keys)

Also included are three new translations:

• Spanish
• Russian
• Chinese

Internally a lot has changed as well. The way the application settings are managed and stored has been completely rewritten. The minimum supported Java version is now Java 11. This allowed to remove many workarounds for older Java versions.

As always, the complete and detailed list of changes can be found in the release notes.

KSE 5.5.3 Released - 29 Dec 2023

This release contains lots of small improvements and a few bug fixes.

The complete list of changes can be found in the release notes.

The 10th Anniversary of the First Open Source Release - 19 Oct 2023

Today we are celebrating a decade of KeyStore Explorer as open source software. On October 19, 2013 version 5.0.0 of KeyStore Explorer was released under the GPLv3 license on Sourceforge.

The history of KSE up to this date and how it became open source was documented by its creator Wayne in a very captivating manner in his blog. If you haven't read this story yet, here are the links:

A History of KeyStore Explorer – Part One
A History of KeyStore Explorer – Part Two
A History of KeyStore Explorer – Part Three
New Owner Wanted for KeyStore Explorer
KeyStore Explorer - OSS Update
KeyStore Explorer Now Open Source

In those last 10 years more than 100 new features have been added in 18 releases. To name just a few of the most important ones:

• Support for ECC (Elliptic Curve Cryptography), EdDSA (Ed25519 and Ed448) and RSASSA-PSS signatures
• Support for MSCAPI and PKCS#11, allowing the use of smart cards and HSMs with KSE
• System clipboard integration
• More CA features like extension templates, custom certificate extensions and CRL creation
• JWT (JSON Web Token) creation

Many of those features were user contributions. All in all almost 30 persons have contributed code or translations to this project and I want to thank all of them for making this project what it is today! The top 5 contributors are:

Contributor	Commits	Additions
Jairo Graterón	49	6,825
Frank Dietrich	48	4,630
Colbix	38	3,170
Davy Defaud	32	11,376
The-Lum	18	1,595

There has been a constant rise in the user count over the last 10 years as well. In 2013, monthly downloads averaged 1,500, but today, that figure has increased to around 35,000.

What is planned for the future? KSE v5.6.0 will be the next big feature release, and it will focus on the following topics:

• Improved PKCS#12 support
• Extended verification features (verifying signatures of jars and CSRs)
• Extended JWT support (for example key import/export in JWK format)

KSE 5.5.2 Released - 22 Jan 2023

This release contains lots of small improvements and a few bug fixes.

Highlights:

• Improved key details dialogs with more information about the keys.
• The subject DN and extensions for a new certificate can now be obtained from another certificate (button "Transfer Name and Extensions").
• A redesigned preferences dialog.

The complete list of changes can be found in the release notes.

KSE 5.5.1 Released - 27 Jan 2022

Highlights of this release:

• KSE can now create and sign JWTs (JSON Web Tokens).
• The French translation has been extended and improved.
• A bug that made the import of CA replies with EC keys impossible has been fixed.

The complete list of changes can be found in the release notes.

KSE 5.5.0 Released - 5 Dec 2021

KeyStore Explorer 5.5.0 contains more than 40 new features, improvements and bug fixes. As always the complete and detailed list of changes can be found in the release notes.

The downloads are here.

One Million Downloads - 14 Oct 2020

Today KeyStore Explorer has crossed one million downloads on GitHub. This includes all releases since November 2015. Not included are downloads from the time when KSE was hosted on Sourceforge (2013 - 2015) or when KSE was Closed Source (2004 - 2013). It took around three years to reach 500,000 downloads and then only two more years for one million, which shows that the number of users is steadily increasing.

If you are interested in a more detailed breakdown of the download numbers, there is a nice website called GitHub Release Stats.

KSE 5.4.4 Released - 4 Oct 2020

KeyStore Explorer 5.4.4 brings some minor improvements and bug fixes. The macOS version now comes with a bundled Java runtime.

See the release notes for details and download it here.

KSE 5.4.3 Released - 8 Mar 2020

KeyStore Explorer 5.4.3 brings some new features and improvements.

See the release notes for details and download it here.

Online User Manual - 31 Dec 2019

KeyStore Explorer's user manual is now part of this website. Future releases of KeyStore Explorer won't include a user manual anymore. Instead the menu item 'Help' will link to the online user manual.

Please keep in mind that you can contribute to the KeyStore Explorer project by improving the documentation. Like KeyStore Explorer itself this website is managed in a repository on GitHub.

KSE 5.4.2 Released - 11 Aug 2019

KeyStore Explorer 5.4.2 brings enhancements, bugfixes and a new version of appbundler (the macOS launcher).

See the release notes for details and download it here.

Half a Million Downloads on GitHub - 02 Dec 2018

Almost exactly three years ago KeyStore Explorer moved from Sourceforge to GitHub. Since then it has been downloaded more than 500,000 times, forked almost 100 times and starred more than 400 times.

KSE 5.4.1 Released - 27 Oct 2018

KeyStore Explorer 5.4.1 is a small bugfix release.

See the release notes for details and download it here.

KSE 5.4.0 Released - 20 Sep 2018

KeyStore Explorer 5.4.0 is a huge feature release. See the release notes for a list of all changes.

KSE 5.3.2 Released - 19 Dec 2017

KeyStore Explorer 5.3.2 is a small bugfix release.

See the release notes for details and download it here.

KSE 5.3.1 Released - 01 Nov 2017

KeyStore Explorer 5.3.1 is a small bugfix release.

See the release notes for details and download it here.

KSE 5.3.0 Released - 01 Aug 2017

KeyStore Explorer 5.3.0 includes many new features, enhancements and bugfixes.

See the release notes for details and download it here.

KSE 5.2.2 Released - 27 Nov 2016

KSE 5.2.2 is mainly a maintenance release, but also includes another translation.

KSE 5.2.1 Released - 13 Aug 2016

Three months have passed since the release of KSE 5.2 and a couple of bugs have been reported - time for a bugfix release.

See the release notes for details and download it here.

KSE 5.2.0 Released - 15 May 2016

KeyStore Explorer 5.2.0 includes many new features, improvements and bugfixes.

See the release notes for details and download it here.

Contribution Guide Added - 27 Apr 2016

A new page has been added to this website that contains suggestions and guidelines on how to contribute to the KeyStore Explorer project.

It also contains a list of contributors.

KSE Now Has Its Own Domain - 22 Nov 2015

This website is now also available under www.keystore-explorer.org

KSE Has Moved to GitHub - 21 Nov 2015

A code repository for KSE has been created on GitHub: KeyStore Explorer on GitHub

The repository on Sourceforge will soon be removed.

KSE 5.1.1 Released - 28 Mar 2015

KeyStore Explorer 5.1.1 is a bugfix release. See the release notes for details.

KSE 5.1.0 Released - 02 Aug 2014

KeyStore Explorer 5.1.0 includes many new features, improvements and bugfixes.

See the release notes for details and download it here.

KSE 5.0.1 Released - 24 Nov 2013

KeyStore Explorer 5.0.1 is a bug fix release. See the release notes for details.

KSE 5.0.0 Released - 19 Oct 2013

KeyStore Explorer 5.0.0 has been released today. See the release notes for details.

The downloads are available here.

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