Opening Connections

Supported Protocols

All major server and cloud storage protocols are supported to connect to just about any server you want.

Toolbar Button

Click the New Connection toolbar button or File → Open Connection.. (mac ⌘O Windows Strg+O). If you want to open a connection in a new browser window, choose File → New Browser (macOS ⌘N Windows Strg+N) first.

Open Connection

Tip

Create a new bookmark instead if you need to configure additional options like Path.

Quick Connect

Type in the name of the server directly into the Quick Connect field in the toolbar. The text field will autocomplete from bookmarked hosts. You can enter a string in the format user@host, i.e. user@example.net, or a fully qualified URL such as ftp://mirror.switch.ch/mirror/. Refer to valid URI formats for input.

Quick Connect

If you enter just the hostname, the default protocol as configured in Preferences → General → Connection will be used.

Bookmarks

Select Bookmarks → Toggle Bookmarks (macOS ⌘B Windows Strg+B) and double-click a bookmark to connect. If you want to bookmark a connection already open, choose Bookmark → New Bookmark (macOS ⌘⇧B Windows Strg+Shift+B) and it will add a new bookmark with the current connection settings.

Additionally, you can switch to the History or Bonjour in the bookmark view.

History

List all recently connected servers. Select a bookmark from the menu Bookmark → History or the History tab of the bookmark view.

History Menu

Bonjour

Auto-discovery of SFTP, FTP & WebDAV services in your local network. Discovered services appear in the Bookmark → Bonjour application menu and the Bonjour tab of the bookmark view.

Opening Connections from Finder.app

Bookmark File

Bookmark Files

Double-click a Cyberduck .duck bookmark file in the Finder.app.

Internet Location File

Double-click an Internet Location File in the Finder.app. Cyberduck must be configured as the default protocol handler for the given protocol of the URL.

Use Spotlight

Note

The Spotlight Menu does return no results for recently connected servers in Cyberduck because it excludes indexed files located in ~/Library/Application Support/Cyberduck/History. This is also an issue for Adium.

As a workaround, you have to export all bookmarks to another location such as your Documents folder. Select all bookmarks (⌘A) in the bookmark list and drag these somewhere in your Documents folder in the Finder. You can then search bookmarks in the Spotlight Menu by nickname and hostname. Additionally, to display all bookmarks as a result search for kind:"Cyberduck Bookmark".

Application Launchers

Quicksilver

Quicksilver is a launcher application. Open the Quicksilver Preferences and install the Cyberduck Module. Then when Cyberduck is selected in Quicksilver use the right-arrow key to access bookmarks within Quicksilver.

LaunchBar

Indexing rule for Cyberduck.

From Third-Party Application

Drag an URL from any third-party application to a browser window.

  • Drag an URL (e.g. from Safari) to the browser list or outline view to open a new connection.

  • Drag an URL to the bookmarks to create a new bookmark.

Problems Connecting

Error IO Error: Broken pipe

There was a problem with the underlying network stream either because the connection was too slow or the server wouldn’t give a response anymore. Often this is caused when you run out of quota on the server - meaning that your user account is not allowed to use any more disk space.

Error IO Error: Read Timed Out

When attempting to open a connection, there is either a firewall blocking requests, or no server is listening at the given address and port. If you get this error while already connected to the server, the network connection to the server is too slow or has too high latency. You can try to increase the connection timeout in Preferences → Connection → Timeouts.

Reachability Alert

A warning sign next to the URL indicates the server may not be reachable due to a missing or invalid hostname in the Server field.

Passwords

Manage your passwords with Keychain Access.app on Mac. Refer to Keychain for Mac: Keychain Access overview.

Passwords will be autofilled as long as you choose to enable the Use Keychain option and corresponding credentials are found.

Transcript

Refer to Provide log output.

Proxy Configuration

The following proxies are supported:

  • SOCKS Proxy for all connections.

  • HTTP proxy tunneling using CONNECT for all connections.

The following proxy settings in System Preferences → Network are supported:

  • The option Exclude simple hostnames is respected and applies to all hostnames not fully qualified.

  • The hostnames and wildcards in Bypass proxy settings are applied

  • CIDR notations are parsed and matched against the IPv4 address of the hostname.

The Automatic Proxy Configuration using a Proxy Configuration File is currently ignored.

Enabled HTTP Connect proxy for SFTP and FTP connections

Choose FTP Proxy and select the checkbox to configure the proxy address.

Proxy Configuration FTP/SFTP

Preferences

Profiles

Select connection protocols to be installed in addition to the default protocols. The connection profile will be installed after enabling the corresponding checkbox. To disable a connection profile simply uncheck the checkbox. The profile will be disabled after closing the application.

Note

You cannot disable default protocols or connection profiles currently in use in any bookmark.

Connection

Use Keychain

Save passwords for connections.

Timeout

You might need to adjust the timeout to wait for an answer from the server. The default is set to 30 seconds.

Repeat Failed Networking Tasks

Failed transfers due to network connection issues such as a low latency can be chosen to be repeated with a configurable number of retries.

Proxies

Choose Cyberduck → Preferences → Connection → Use system proxy settings. No additional configuration needed.

Additional Settings

Prefer IPv6 Addresses of DNS Lookups

A hidden configuration option.

connection.dns.ipv6=true

Disable Bonjour Support

A hidden configuration option.

rendezvous.enable=false

Disable Bonjour Notifications in Notification Center and System Tray

A hidden configuration option. By default, the limit is set to allow not more than 30 notifications per minute.

rendezvous.notification.limit=0

Default Protocol Handler

You can set Cyberduck or a third-party application as the default application (protocol handler) for FTP and SFTP in Preferences → FTP and Preferences → SFTP respectively.

Default FTP Protocol Handler

Web Browser

When you click URLs in another application like your web browser, this application is opened to open the URL instead.

Terminal

macOS only

This also works when working in Terminal.app. Type open sftp://host to open with Cyberduck registered as the default protocol handler for SFTP.

Installation

Double-click the connection profile file (.cyberduckprofile) to open and register the profile. When using the CLI refer to the documentation.

Connection Profiles

Connection profiles (.cyberduckprofile) are plugins describing specific connection settings for a hosting provider to make it easier to setup a connection to your provider. A connection profile is installed and adds a provider option in the protocol selection drop down menu in the Connection and Bookmark panels. No need to enter the connection details manually other than credentials.

File Format

Refer to the technical documentation.