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How to use SFTP on a Mac (drag & drop, free)

By Lucas Russo, developer of SSHive · Updated

Drag-and-drop SFTP transfers, remote file editing and bulk operations, in the same window as your SSH terminal. Free.

Estimated time: 3 minutes

SFTP is the file-transfer side of SSH: same sign-in, same encryption, same connection. macOS ships no graphical SFTP client, and the Finder does not speak the protocol, whatever some old tutorials say. The usual free answers are a dedicated app such as Cyberduck, in a window of its own, or scp in Terminal, which works but gets slow for the back-and-forth of editing files. SSHive puts SFTP in the same window as the SSH terminal: drag, drop, edit, save. Still choosing a client? Our comparison of SFTP clients for Mac lines them up.

Step-by-step

  1. Open the SFTP panel next to a live SSH terminal

    Connect to a profile: the SSH terminal opens. In the terminal toolbar, click the folder icon on the right, or press Cmd+E. The SFTP panel slides in next to the terminal as a split view. The layout button in the same toolbar switches between side by side (SFTP left, terminal right) and stacked (SFTP on top, terminal below). Drag the divider to resize; double-click it to reset the ratio. To close the panel, use the × in the SFTP navigation bar or the same toolbar button.

  2. Drag and drop from the Finder (whole folders work)

    Drag a file or a whole folder from the Finder onto the SFTP panel: the drop zone lights up and SSHive uploads recursively. Multiple selections work too. If a file already exists on the server, a dialog offers three choices: Replace / Duplicate (suffix (2)) / Skip. The free version caps each uploaded file at 10 MB; Pro has no per-file cap. Downloads are uncapped in both.

  3. Edit text files in place: double-click, Cmd+S, done

    Double-click a text file in the SFTP panel. Under 5 MB, it opens in SSHive's built-in editor (CodeMirror 6), with syntax highlighting for JS/TS, Python, JSON, HTML, CSS, XML, YAML, Markdown and shell scripts. Edit, press Cmd+S, and SSHive writes the file straight back to the server: no temporary copy to manage, no second upload. The title bar reads ● modified until the file is saved. Above 1 MB the editor opens read-only, so you can read and search a large log but not save it, and from 5 MB a double-click offers to download the file instead.

  4. Binary files (images, PDFs, archives): download, edit, send back

    SSHive does not watch binaries you open in other apps: that pattern breaks depending on how the macOS sandbox is set up. Instead, double-click a binary and SSHive offers to download it through the macOS save dialog. Edit it locally with any app, then drag the changed file back onto the SFTP panel and pick Replace in the Replace / Duplicate / Skip dialog. Two clicks more than automatic watching, and no surprises.

  5. Bookmark deep paths and get back in one click

    Open a folder you come back to often, such as /var/log, /etc/nginx or ~/.config, and click the star at the end of the SFTP path bar (Add to bookmarks). The arrow next to the star opens the Favorites menu: pick a path and the panel jumps straight there. Bookmarks are kept per profile in SSHive's settings, unlimited in the free version as in Pro, so they survive a restart.

Frequently asked questions

Is SSHive's SFTP free?+
Yes. SFTP is part of the free version, next to the SSH terminal. The free version allows 2 sessions at once and 5 saved profiles, and has one SFTP-specific limit: each uploaded file is capped at 10 MB. Downloads are not capped, and Pro lifts the upload cap.
How does SSHive compare to Cyberduck for SFTP?+
Cyberduck is a dedicated file-transfer app: besides SFTP it speaks FTP, WebDAV, Amazon S3 and a long list of cloud storage services. SSHive puts SFTP next to the SSH terminal of the same server, so you can fix a config file and restart the service without switching windows. If your files mostly live on servers you already reach over SSH, SSHive saves you a window; if you also move them to S3 or WebDAV, Cyberduck covers that.

Related SSHive features

SFTP File Manager

Drag & drop file manager

SSH Terminal

GPU-accelerated terminal

See also

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