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Ayon Pal
Ayon Pal

Posted on • Originally published at github.com

I built a free macOS app to mount SFTP, S3, and FTP as real Finder volumes — no macFUSE

#opensource #swift #showdev

TL;DR

macsh is a tiny menu-bar app that mounts SFTP, S3-compatible, and FTP/FTPS servers as native macOS volumes. Open them in Finder, drag files in, edit in place. No macFUSE, no kernel extension, no Recovery-mode reboot. Apache-2.0, free.

Heads up: macsh is built with Claude Code. I'm the designer, tester, and maintainer; the implementation is AI-written under my direction. Bugs and decisions are mine. Also, I am first time posting to Dev.to.

The problem

When accessing linux servers I want to treat a remote box like a folder on my Mac. Then I rediscover that the options on macOS are… not great:

  • macFUSE works, but it's a kernel extension. That means a Recovery-mode reboot to allow it, and Apple keeps making this path narrower with each release.
  • Cyberduck / Mountain Duck / Transmit are excellent — and paid or not easy to integrate in finder. Also I find Cyberduck causing heavy battery draining.
  • Finder → Connect to Server speaks SMB, AFP, WebDAV, NFS. No SFTP. No S3.

I just wanted Finder, but pointed at my server. So I shipped it. Rclone was working great - but had to run commands with remembering ip addresses etc. And a quick easy way to use it without remembering how to manage them.

How it works (the boring secret)

macsh is a thin SwiftUI wrapper around rclone's NFS-mount mode.

remote ──rclone──▶ local WebDav/NFS socket ──macOS──▶ /Volumes/my-server
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rclone serves the remote over a local NFS/WebDav socket. macOS already speaks NFS/WebDAV natively, so it mounts that socket as a regular volume. Result:

  • No kernel extension
  • No sudo
  • No "allow this system extension" dance
  • Works inside the Mac's normal sandboxing model

The app's job is the boring-but-important stuff: a nice form for adding remotes, Keychain for secrets, launch-at-login, mount/unmount lifecycle, in-app SSH key generation, update checks, menu-bar UX.

What's in it

  • SFTP / SSH — password, existing key file, or generate a new key in-app
  • S3-compatible — AWS, Cloudflare R2, Backblaze B2, Wasabi, MinIO, DigitalOcean Spaces, custom endpoints
  • FTP / FTPS — explicit and implicit TLS
  • Auto-mount at login
  • Live updates — server-side changes appear in seconds
  • Keychain-backed credentials — never plaintext on disk

Two builds, pick one

macsh macsh-lite
DMG size ~32 MB ~800 KB
rclone bundled uses your brew install rclone
Best for "just works" smaller download / power users

Honest caveats

  • Apple Silicon only. No Intel build. macOS 14+ (Sonoma). Tested on Tahoe.
  • Unsigned releases. I don't have an Apple Developer ID yet (and for now no plan for it 😅) , so after dragging the app to /Applications you'll need to run this once: 
  xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/macsh.app
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Otherwise Gatekeeper says "macsh is damaged" — it isn't, that's just Apple's wording for "I don't recognise this signature."

  • It's v0.1.x. Expect rough edges. File issues!

Try it

A star on the repo helps a lot. PRs and issues very welcome.

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