A WinSCP alternative for Mac and Linux, free to install

Platform is the usual one. The requirements page lists Windows 7/2008 up to Windows 11 and Windows Server 2025, and its entire position on anything else is that WinSCP also runs on Wine. The vendor has not tested that, and "we run it under Wine" is a sentence somebody eventually asks you to justify.

The second is having two windows open on one server. WinSCP's Console runs a command and prints the output, with no TTY behind it, so anything that redraws the screen stops with "Error opening terminal". The documented route to a shell is Open in PuTTY: a second application, and a second host list to keep in step with the first.

The third is remote desktop, which WinSCP has never had. It was asked for on the official forum in a thread titled "Need to have RDP in winscp" and nothing shipped.

The fourth is quieter and tends to surface during a review. A saved password sits in the registry or in WinSCP.ini in a form the vendor itself describes as easily recovered, unless somebody switched the master password on, and nothing in the product asks you to.

The fifth is the one nobody warns you about: none of it is portable. Export/Backup configuration writes an INI, and no other client reads it, so the host list is retyped wherever you go next. Budget a few minutes for that before you start.

The two-pane layout, if that is how you work: local on one side, remote on the other, drag and drop between them, and a transfer queue with progress, speed, ETA, cancel and retry.

SFTP, and FTPS as a real protocol rather than an afterthought: Conchshell's FTPS runs over rustls and checks the system root certificate store, though certificate pinning is not there yet. Directory compare and synchronise are in, in four explicit steps. So is opening a remote file in your own editor, where saving sends it back, and so are per-server directory history and pinned directories.

And then the parts WinSCP has no answer for: a real PTY in the same window, split four ways, with tab groups and session restore; an RDP session in the next tab, over CredSSP (NLA) only; live CPU, memory, disk, process, bandwidth and latency graphs for the host; log tailing from several sources at once with level and regex filters.

The application is free on macOS, Windows and Linux. No account exists, so there is nothing to sign into, nothing to expire and no tier that greys itself out.

One thing is paid, and it is worth being exact about. Carrying your saved connections between your own machines costs $19 once, an introductory price rising to $29. It is a purchase, not a subscription: updates are included, the key is checked on your machine without a network, and there is no machine limit.

WinSCP charges nothing for anything, and its answer to the same problem is portable mode: keep WinSCP.ini in a folder you already synchronise yourself, which works. If price is the only axis you are comparing on, WinSCP wins it, and this page is not going to pretend otherwise.

• Your main machine is a Mac or a Linux box, and "we run it under Wine" is not something you want to defend in a change ticket.
• You are running WinSCP and PuTTY against the same host and editing the port number in two places.
• An RDP session belongs to the same task as the file copy. Conchshell does RDP over CredSSP (NLA) only, so a host with NLA disabled will not connect, but it is in the same window at no extra cost.
• You want saved credentials encrypted by default: XChaCha20-Poly1305 with an Argon2id-derived key, bound to host, port, user, proxy chain and jump host, with no way in the interface to read one back.
• You want to remap the shortcuts you use most, instead of choosing from a fixed pool of 36 combinations reserved for bookmarks, custom commands and extensions.

• You are on Windows and never leave it. Explorer drag and drop, jump lists, a URL protocol handler, shared sites with PuTTY, Pageant, and Kerberos single sign-on in an Active Directory domain: Conchshell reaches none of that.
• You need it portable. One executable with its INI beside it runs from a USB stick on a workstation where you cannot install anything.
• You are arriving with sites in another client. WinSCP imports from PuTTY, KiTTY, FileZilla's sitemanager.xml and an OpenSSH config, and host keys from known_hosts. Conchshell imports its own JSON bundle and nothing else.
• Your transfers run unattended. Scripting, the command line and the .NET assembly are first-class here, and Generate Session URL/Code turns a session you clicked together into a .bat or a .ps1. Conchshell has no equivalent.
• You want to read the code. WinSCP is GPLv3 with a public repository, so you can audit it, patch it and keep it running whoever ends up maintaining it.

1. Export first. In the Login dialog, Tools > Export/Backup configuration writes an INI containing every site. Nothing on the other side reads it, so treat it as your checklist, and keep it until the move is finished.
2. Download Conchshell for your platform. On macOS 13 and later the first launch is System Settings > Privacy & Security > Open Anyway; on macOS 12, System Preferences > Security & Privacy > General.
3. Create the vault with a passphrase. Argon2id derives the key, XChaCha20-Poly1305 encrypts the store, and the OS keychain or a recovery code can be added later as separate slots without re-encrypting anything.
4. Recreate the sites from the INI: host, port, user, protocol, plus the jump host or proxy if there was one. Proxies here are HTTP CONNECT, SOCKS4, SOCKS4a and SOCKS5, and a jump host keeps its own credentials.
5. Passwords are typed in once, on purpose: the JSON bundle that moves connections, folders, profiles and settings between Conchshell installs carries no credentials by design. Private keys are not copied anywhere either. You point the connection at the file already on disk, and keys protected by a passphrase work.
6. Only if you want the same hosts on a second machine: $19 once, and the encrypted vault mirrors into a folder you already sync. Without such a folder, only the first copy travels, by reading a code off the desktop screen.

Download Conchshell

What is the best free WinSCP alternative for Mac?

It depends on what half of WinSCP you use. Cyberduck and FileZilla move files and stop there. Conchshell is free to install on macOS, Windows and Linux and puts SSH, SFTP, FTPS and RDP in one window, with syncing connections between your own machines as the only paid feature at $19 once. None of them read a WinSCP INI, so the host list is retyped.

Is Conchshell free, or free until it is not?

Free on every platform, with no account, no trial clock and no feature that greys out over time. One thing costs money: syncing saved connections between your own machines, $19 once at the introductory price, then $29. It is a one-off purchase with updates included, the licence is checked on your own machine without a network, and it covers as many of your machines as you like.

Do I need an account to use it?

There is no account to create and nothing to sign into: connections live on your machine, and there is no cloud of ours holding them. If you buy sync, the encrypted vault is mirrored into a folder you already synchronise, such as iCloud Drive, Dropbox or a git checkout, and the second machine reads it from there. The honest limit: without such a folder, only the first copy travels, by reading a code off the screen.

Can I run WinSCP on a Mac with Wine?

People do, and the requirements page does say WinSCP also runs on Wine, but the vendor does not test it. On the forum thread about a Mac equivalent the author said he had not tested it and could give no suggestions. What you get is a Win32 application, its dialogs, and nobody to ask when it misbehaves. A native client removes the question.

Will my WinSCP sites import?

Not automatically. WinSCP exports an INI, Conchshell imports its own JSON bundle, and there is no converter between the two. In practice you keep the INI open and retype host, port, user and protocol, which for a dozen servers is a few minutes. Credentials would not have travelled in either direction anyway, because no export here contains them.

Is WinSCP safe to download?

The application is not the problem; the search results have been. BleepingComputer, Rapid7 and The Hacker News have all reported malvertising campaigns pushing trojanised WinSCP installers through paid search. Take the download from winscp.net itself rather than from an advert. The OpenCandy bundling people still bring up belongs to installers from years ago, not to what the site serves today.

Does WinSCP have a scheduler?

No. The vendor's guide points at Windows Task Scheduler plus WinSCP scripting, and there is a whole FAQ page for scripts that work by hand but hang under Task Scheduler or SSIS, usually over the working directory or Pageant being unreachable from a service session. Conchshell has neither a scheduler nor a scripting host, so recurring transfers are a reason to keep WinSCP.

WinSCP is free, still maintained, and does the job it advertises. If it runs on your machine and covers your work, replacing it would be a waste of an afternoon, and the migration steps above are not aimed at you.

It stops at three places: the Windows boundary, the terminal, and remote desktop. If you are standing at one of them, what you want is one window that holds all of it, free to install on macOS, Windows and Linux, with a single paid feature: syncing connections between your own machines, $19 once.

Download Conchshell

• What Conchshell is
• Download for macOS, Windows or Linux
• FileZilla alternative
• Cyberduck alternative
• PuTTY alternative