How to use SFTP on a Mac

1. SFTP from Terminal

Open Terminal and start a session:

sftp username@server-address

Then use these commands inside the session:

ls          # list remote files
cd /var/www # change remote directory
lcd ~/Sites # change local directory
get file    # download
put file    # upload
bye         # quit

2. Quick one-off transfers with scp

scp local-file username@server:/remote/path      # upload
scp username@server:/remote/file ./              # download

3. A native dual-pane SFTP client

For regular transfers, typing commands gets old fast. Noden gives you a dual-pane SFTP browser — local on one side, remote on the other — with drag-and-drop upload and download, and remote editing: open a file in a Mac editor and it uploads back on save. Because Noden is also an SSH client, your terminal and files are in the same window.

brew install --cask useroamteknoloji/tap/noden

Which of the three fits your job

All three move files over the same SSH connection; the difference is how much friction there is when the job is not a single file.

One file, once	scp is fastest — nothing to set up, one line, done.
Browsing before you decide	Command-line sftp works but you are listing directories blind. A dual-pane client shows both sides at once.
Editing a config on the server	Open the remote file in your own editor; saving sends it back over the same connection, with no download-edit-upload cycle.
The same file to many servers	Saved connections plus broadcast input in the terminal beside the file pane.
Behind a bastion	Set a saved connection as the jump host; the file pane follows the same route.

The part that usually goes wrong: permissions

Most failed transfers are not transfer problems. Three checks, in order:

• Can your user write there at all? ls -ld /target/dir shows the owner and mode. Uploading into a directory owned by root as a normal user fails no matter which client you use.
• Did the file land with the wrong owner? SFTP writes as the user you logged in with. If a service needs to read it, chown it afterwards — in Noden the terminal for that same server is one pane over, so it is two keystrokes rather than another app.
• Is the disk actually full? df -h. A truncated upload and a permission error look similar from the client side.

Credentials for all of this stay in the macOS Keychain rather than in an application config file, and a connection can point at a vault entry so rotating a password once updates every connection that uses it.

Frequently asked questions

See also: How to use SSH on Mac · Mac SFTP client · WinSCP for Mac · FileZilla alternative