Releases: Col-E/Recaf
4.0.0 Alpha / Preview
Recaf 4.X Preview
These are preview builds of Recaf built on the current master branch on August 31st 2025October 25th 2025.
Java 22+ is required
What is new in Recaf 4.X compared to 2.X / 3.X?
There are too many changes to list but some highlights include:
- New modern UI theme + nicer monospace font
- New tools for deobfuscating code
- Improved support for loading obfuscated inputs targeting common anti-reverse engineering techniques
- Improved dockable UI system with features comparable to what you would see in IntelliJ
- Improved assembly format for editing Java instructions
- Improved assembly UI, including control flow visualization, variable read/write visualization, and more
- Basic read-only Android support (Will be expanded upon in future releases)
Which file should I download?
We recommend most users grab the launcher as it gives you the means to easily grab new releases with a single click. You can find the launcher project here. Information on why a launcher exists can be found in the user documentation section under "Installing".
If you do not want the launcher, you can grab the independent release artifacts attached here, or build Recaf from source yourself. We do not officially have releases anywhere outside of GitHub. We are aware that some third parties will offer their own way to install Recaf such as via Brew,AUR, etc but insist you only use these if you trust them and don't care if you use very outdated builds.
Which file do I download if I want this specific build?
The independent releases recaf-4x-alpha-<platform>.jar are run with java -jar. The <platform> portion should match your operating system and architecture.
- For Windows, just grab the file that says
win-86x64 - For Mac/Linux, grab the respective
macorlinuxjar that is suffixed with86x64oraarchdepending on your CPU architecture.
Why is this not marked as a
previewon github if these are previews?
Because then they don't show up in the main page as the latest release, which massively limits their reach. I am really tired of people downloading a 5+ year old version of Recaf so this is why this is marked as an actual release.
This does not mean 4.0.0 is right around the corner, we still have a lot left to do.
2.21.4
2.21.14 (2024-04-27)
👉 BIG BOLD ATTENTION GRABBING TEXT 👈
Important news
This update is primarily to remove the auto-updater from Recaf 2.X as the next release iterations are not compatible with the existing auto-updater schema. The last few prior updates announced that Recaf 3.X was in progress. We have since restructured significantly once more and will be going to 4.X.
For more details you can check out 4.X here:
Updated libraries
- ASM 9.2 --> 9.7
- CAFEDUDE 1.9.6 --> 2.0.1
- JavaParser 3.24.2 --> 3.25.9
- JPhantom 1.4.3 --> 1.4.4
2.21.13
2.21.13 (2022-03-29)
Important news
The 3rd major version release of Recaf (3.X) is in a early-alpha state. You can check the progress here: Recaf 3X Issues & Feedback
For repository owners and maintainers of package managers, this will change the artifact release process. More information about this change will come out once the 3X project gets closer to an official release.
New Features
- Plugins can now specify custom language files (253be13)
- Keybind to increase/decrease font size (e2cbecc)
Bug Fixes
2.21.12
2.21.12 (2022-02-01)
Important news
The 3rd major version release of Recaf (3.X) is in a early-alpha state. You can check the progress here: Recaf 3X Issues & Feedback
For repository owners and maintainers of package managers, this will change the artifact release process. More information about this change will come out once the 3X project gets closer to an official release.
Bug Fixes
- Renaming a class, then renaming its members does not yield correct aggregate mappings (9358cbf)
2.21.11
2.21.11 (2022-01-08)
Important news
The 3rd major version release of Recaf (3.X) is in a early-alpha state. You can check the progress here: Recaf 3X Issues & Feedback
For repository owners and maintainers of package managers, this will change the artifact release process. More information about this change will come out once the 3X project gets closer to an official release.
Bug Fixes
- Fix update prompt not properly rendering all items in the changelog (7ee876d)
- Fix detection of minimum support version for javac (4a72119)
- Fix crash exporting jar with duplicate paths (7a0a8a0)
- Fix accidental removal of ZIP parsing fallbacks (d0cf108)
- Fix desktop browse breaking on Linux, now use platform specific open options (3212458)
- Improve phantom class generation performance by moving file IO to in-memory operations (1c855ec)
- Improve compiler performance by moving file based classpath to in-memory classpath (1c855ec)
2.21.10
2.21.10 (2022-01-04)
Important news
The 3rd major version release of Recaf (3.X) is in a early-alpha state. You can check the progress here: Recaf 3X Issues & Feedback
For repository owners and maintainers of package managers, this will change the artifact release process. More information about this change will come out once the 3X project gets closer to an official release.
Bug Fixes
2.21.9
2.21.9 (2022-01-02)
Important news
The 3rd major version release of Recaf (3.X) is in a early-alpha state. You can check the progress here: https://github.com/Col-E/recaf-3x-issues/
For repository owners and maintainers of package managers, this will change the artifact release process. More information about this change will come out once the 3X project gets closer to an official release.
Bug Fixes
- Class reading method for invalid class CRCs (52bc600)
2.21.8
2.21.8 (2021-12-30)
Important news
The 3rd major version release of Recaf (3.X) is in a early-alpha state. You can check the progress here: https://github.com/Col-E/recaf-3x-issues/
For repository owners and maintainers of package managers, this will change the artifact release process. More information about this change will come out once the 3X project gets closer to an official release.
Bug Fixes
- Crash on JFX injection (Java 11+) when Recaf directory does not already exist (c8a3cf8)
2.21.7
2.21.7 (2021-12-15)
Important news
The 3rd major version release of Recaf (3.X) is in a early-alpha state. You can check the progress here: https://github.com/Col-E/recaf-3x-issues/
For repository owners and maintainers of package managers, this will change the artifact release process. More information about this change will come out once the 3X project gets closer to an official release.
Features
- Bump CFR from 151 -> 152
- Migrate from forge-mirrored FernFlower to ForgeFlower
Bug Fixes
- Fix not pulling architecture-dependent JavaFX bindings. Should support Mac M1 (4b82d8c)