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Any graphical SFTP clients for OS X?

S

stchman

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 16, 2012
671
2
St. Louis, MO
I have several Linux machines that I connect to.

I know I can use the terminal to connect to another machine via ssh, but I would like to know if there is a GUI method.

Finder does not do it, PathFinder does not do it, is there something.

I would like to have away to do drag and drop like Nautilus in Ubuntu is capable of doing.

Thanks.
 
Last edited:
SSH isn't graphical at at. SFTP, which runs over SSH, can be. Look into Cyberduck or Forklift or Transmit.
 
stchman said:
I have several Linux machines that I connect to.

I know I can use the terminal to connect to another machine via ssh, but I would like to know if there is a GUI method.

Finder does not do it, PathFinder does not do it, is there something.

I would like to have away to do drag and drop like Nautilus in Ubuntu is capable of doing.

Thanks.
Click to expand...

Are you looking for a GUI to manage connections? Terminal already does that from the "file->open new remote connection" menu item.

unhc6.png
 
Intell said:
SSH isn't graphical at at. SFTP, which runs over SSH, can be. Look into Cyberduck or Forklift or Transmit.
Click to expand...

Thanks, it looks like Cyberduck will fit the bill.

I went to Cyberduck's website:

http://cyberduck.ch/

and noticed it was free, but when you go to the Apple app store, they are charging $23.99 for it. How does Apple get away with selling free software?
 
stchman said:
Thanks, it looks like Cyberduck will fit the bill.

I went to Cyberduck's website:

http://cyberduck.ch/

and noticed it was free, but when you go to the Apple app store, they are charging $23.99 for it. How does Apple get away with selling free software?
Click to expand...

It's donationware. Cyberduck prompts for a donation every new version, if you use the free one from their site. Cyberduck sets the price in the App Store, Apple has nothing to do with it.
 
Are you interested for ssh or scp ? While technically they both use the same protocol/service they are different things. The first is about accessing a remote machine via command line while the other is about transferring files to the remote machine.

For the first, just use the terminal (e.g. ssh user@remote.server). For the second, you can also use the terminal (e.g. scp myfile user@remote.server:/path/to/remote/server) or any other graphical clients mentioned above.
 
antonis said:
Are you interested for ssh or scp ? While technically they both use the same protocol/service they are different things. The first is about accessing a remote machine via command line while the other is about transferring files to the remote machine.

For the first, just use the terminal (e.g. ssh user@remote.server). For the second, you can also use the terminal (e.g. scp myfile user@remote.server:/path/to/remote/server) or any other graphical clients mentioned above.
Click to expand...

I am quite familiar with how to use SSH and SCP in a terminal.

I am interested in being able to drag and drop files to and from *.ix machines. So SFTP is the proper answer.

Ubuntu's Nautilus has this feature built in, Windows and OS X do not. I have found that Filezilla does SFTP.

I just find it strange that OS X does not have this feature built in. I gather that the overwhelming majority of OS X users have ZERO idea what SSH, SFTP, FTP, etc., even means, they figured that including them would be a waste of time.
 
Success with Cyberduck

After trying other graphical clients, I found success with Cyberduck for SFTP and other transfer methods. Good luck.
 
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r0k said:
Are you looking for a GUI to manage connections? Terminal already does that from the "file->open new remote connection" menu item.

Image
Click to expand...
This is a great option to access the os terminal. FileZilla works great to transfer files between them what more can you need.
 
stchman said:
I know I can use the terminal to connect to another machine via ssh, but I would like to know if there is a GUI method.
Click to expand...

(I actually read the subject line, so I know you are talking about SFTP!)

Two main ways of doing this:

1. With a dedicated FTP/SFTP client/browser App (e.g. FileZilla, Cyberduck...)
2. Using a kernel extension to let you mount SSHFS servers and access them via finder and other regular applications.

For a long time I was using method 2 using MacFusion - but the uncertainty of support for OS X updates put me off (I believe it still works on 10.9 if you install the correct version of MacFUSE* but its looking a bit like abandonware).

I ended up using Transmit (available on the App store). Arguably, a bit pricey given that there are free/shareware solutions available, but it is nice and polished. It has its own client/browser (pretty well integrated, you can Open with...) and supports mounting shares. Also has a nice sync facility.

"Method 2" is great if it works, but SFTP servers weren't really designed to support a full-featured filesystem and you can hit glitches with permissions etc. I guess that's why Apple didn't build SSH into Finder.

The other thing I tend to do for uploading websites etc. is to use rsync, and write a little script 'upload_site.command' something like:

Code: 
#!/bin/bash
cd `dirname $0`
rsync -v -e ssh --progress --exclude-from=exclude.lst -rLptu www username@remotehost.com:

...do a chmod u+x on it, then just double-click on the 'upload_site.command' to update the remote copy of the website (the remote machine needs rsync, but that's almost a given with Linux).

(*Just to clarify, MacFUSE is a multi-file-system kernel extension, SSHFS is a plug-in for that which supports mounting SFTP shares via the command line, MacFusion is a free GUI for this).
 
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