Progress Report: September 2026

September was a busy month at Backpack HQ. We launched a new add-on, gave the Tabler theme nine new looks, tightened up file uploads an...

September was a busy month at Backpack HQ. We launched a new add-on, gave the Tabler theme nine new looks, tightened up file uploads and rebuilt search on our website from scratch. Let's get into it!

Maintenance

• CRUD - 5 updates (we're at v7.1.20), plus 1 for v6 (v6.8.17)
• PRO - 1 update (v3.0.30), plus 1 for v2 (v2.2.37)
• Theme-Tabler - 2 updates (v2.1.0)
• Theme-CoreUIv4 and Theme-CoreUIv2 - 2 updates each
• a few minor patches to other packages (Calendar Operation, Comment Manager, MediaLibrary Uploaders)

Most of these are bugfixes: morphTo fields, export buttons skipping columns the table hid on mobile, grouped errors not showing on the Update operation, the logout route and more. So do a composer update when you get the chance.

Safer file uploads

Pedro spent a good part of the month on our uploaders, and you should know about two changes:

• file ownership - when you update or delete an entry, Backpack now only touches the files that belong to that entry. The same fix went into PRO's dropzone field.
• file type validation - all uploaders now check the file extension before they store anything. Server-executable files (php, phar etc.) get rejected, always. Files that browsers can run as active content (svg, html, xml etc.) get rejected by default too, because they can run scripts when someone opens them.

If your admin panel needs to accept one of those, you can allow it per field:

use Backpack\CRUD\app\Library\Uploaders\Support\FileExtensions;

CRUD::field('logo')->type('upload')->withFiles([
    'allowedExtensions' => [...FileExtensions::DEFAULT_ALLOWED, 'svg'],
]);

or for the whole project, using the new allowed_upload_extensions key in config/backpack/crud.php. Heads-up: if you let admins upload SVGs today, check that after you update.

New skins for Tabler

Theme-Tabler v2.1.0 comes with 9 skins. Each skin is one CSS file that changes the look of your whole admin panel: colors, background, borders, spacing, fonts. Some are subtle, some... not so much:

• aurora - frosted glass over a soft gradient (the default for new installs)
• atlas - cool greys, dense tables, a confident blue
• manuscript - warm cream, serif headings, lots of room to breathe
• ink - dark first, with a sky-blue accent
• mono - black on white, sharp corners, monospace labels
• blueprint, honey, pine and synth - each with its own accent color and background pattern

Changing skins takes one line in config/backpack/theme-tabler.php. We made the change non-breaking, so your existing admin panel won't change unless you ask it to. But the fun part is to try them out first, live in our demo. Pick one and let me know which one you like best 😀

New Add-on: Multi Auth

At the start of the month we launched backpack/multi-auth. Install one package and your admin panel gets 2FA, magic link login, passkeys and social login (Google, Facebook, Apple, GitHub etc.), on top of email & password. It keeps your existing Backpack login URLs and theme views, and uses Laravel Fortify and Socialite under the hood. You can read more about it here. If you're on an active GOLD plan, you already have access to it - go use it!

Better search & AI on our website

You might have noticed our website looks a little different this month. We replaced our old docs chat and Algolia search with something we built ourselves:

• Search - press / or Cmd+K on any page to search our docs, articles and add-ons at once;
• Ask AI - click "Ask AI" on any page and ask a question in plain English. It answers using our docs, articles and add-on READMEs, and it links the pages it used, so you can double-check.

It already does a better job than what we had before, because it knows about everything we publish, including the paid add-ons. But it's not perfect. If you get a bad answer, please give it a 👎 - we look at those, and they show us exactly where our docs need more work.

Backpack v8

Work on v8 continues. And the wishlist is still open! If you haven't told us what bugs you in Backpack v7 (or what you'd love to see in v8), comment below. Even a one-line answer helps.

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That's it for September 2026. Thanks for using Backpack - we couldn't do this without your support.

Cheers!