Support

When a connection fails, the pane shows both a plain-language explanation and the server's raw error (for example 530 Login incorrect). Work from the raw error:

• Timed out / can't reach host:port — check the host and port (SFTP defaults to 22, FTP and FTPS to 21), your network and VPN, and the server's firewall or cloud security group. The connection timeout is 10 seconds.
• Authentication failed — click Edit Server on the failure page to jump straight to the password field. For key-based login, make sure the matching public key is in the server's ~/.ssh/authorized_keys.
• Wrong protocol — FTP against port 22, or SFTP against port 21, will always fail.

That's MomentFTP protecting you. The first time you connect to an SFTP server, the app remembers its SHA-256 host key fingerprint. If the fingerprint ever changes, the connection is blocked in red, and the default button is Disconnect.

Legitimate causes include a reinstalled server, rotated host keys, or a different machine behind the same IP. It can also mean a man-in-the-middle attack.

Ask the server administrator to confirm the new fingerprint (run ssh-keygen -lf /etc/ssh/ssh_host_ed25519_key.pub on the server). Only when it matches, click Trust New Fingerprint.

The server uses a certificate that macOS can't verify — most often a self-signed certificate on a NAS or internal server. The dialog shows the subject, issuer, validity period and SHA-256 fingerprint.

Check the fingerprint with your administrator (openssl x509 -in cert.pem -noout -fingerprint -sha256 on the server). If it matches, choose Trust and Connect and you won't be asked again, or Connect Once for a one-off session. If the certificate changes later, the connection is blocked, just like an SSH host key.

The server uses FTP, which sends your username, password and file contents unencrypted. Anyone on the same network can capture them.

Use FTP only on networks you trust. If the server supports it, switch to SFTP or FTPS in Edit Server — the port follows the new protocol's default automatically.

The account you signed in with can't read or write the target. Failed tasks stay in the Failed tab of the transfer queue, with the error on the row; hover to see the server's original message.

• Upload failed: make sure the target folder belongs to your account or is writable by it. On SFTP servers you can right-click a folder › Permissions to adjust rwx (if you're allowed to change it).
• Download failed: make sure the remote file is readable and the local destination folder is writable.

Then click Retry in the queue.

Some older Windows/IIS FTP servers and NAS devices encode filenames in GBK. Open Edit Server › Advanced and set Encoding to GBK (the default, Automatic, tries UTF-8 first and falls back to GBK), save, and reconnect.

A task is marked as stalled (yellow) when no data has arrived for 5 seconds — usually a network hiccup, a dropped VPN, a Wi-Fi switch, or a busy server.

• The transfer continues once the network recovers. If it eventually fails, it moves to the Failed tab; click Retry to start that file again.
• This version doesn't resume partial transfers yet, so a retried large file starts from the beginning.
• With many files in flight, you can Pause All while you check the network, then resume.

It's macOS privacy protection: every app needs your consent the first time it reads these folders. Click Allow.

If you clicked Don't Allow earlier, the local pane shows a guide with an Open System Settings button. Turn MomentFTP on under Privacy & Security › Files and Folders, then refresh the pane.

MomentFTP never uploads diagnostics on its own. To export them yourself:

1. Logs: open Terminal and run
   log show --last 1h --info --predicate 'subsystem == "com.moment.ftp"' > ~/Desktop/MomentFTP-log.txt
   A log file appears on your Desktop. Logs never contain passwords or key passphrases, and hosts and paths are shown as <private> by default.
2. Crash reports (if the app quit unexpectedly): in Finder press ⇧⌘G, go to ~/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports, and look for .ips files starting with MomentFTP.
3. A screenshot of the failure page, which shows the server's raw error.

Feel free to open the files first and remove anything you'd rather not share.

MomentFTP supports OpenSSH (-----BEGIN OPENSSH PRIVATE KEY-----) and PEM (such as BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY) private keys, with or without a passphrase — Ed25519, ECDSA and RSA.

The connection sheet lists keys found in ~/.ssh; you can also pick a key file from anywhere. PuTTY .ppk keys aren't supported yet — export them to OpenSSH format with PuTTYgen first.

Only when you check Save to Keychain are passwords and key passphrases stored, in your macOS Keychain (service com.moment.ftp.credential). Config files never contain passwords. Deleting a server also removes its Keychain items; you can also search for that service name in Keychain Access.

No. When two panes are connected to different servers, MomentFTP reads from A while writing to B; the data only passes through memory on your Mac. Speed is limited by the slower of the two links, and the confirmation sheet shows an estimate before you start.

Up to four server panes on the right, plus your Mac on the left. Add one with Add Pane in the toolbar (⌘T) and close one with the × on its header (⌘W). Drag a pane by its header to dock it anywhere, use Equalize (⌃⌘=) to even out the sizes, and switch panes with ⌘1–⌘4 (⌘0 for your Mac) — keyboard focus follows. Rearranging never disconnects anything, and your layout is remembered when you quit.

Click the + next to the Servers heading in the sidebar › New Group… (⇧⌘G). An empty group appears, ready to be named: press Return to confirm or Esc to cancel.

Groups are one level deep — they hold servers, not other groups. You can also pick New Group… from the Group menu when adding or editing a server. Right-click a group to rename it, drag its header to reorder, and click the disclosure triangle to fold it.

• Drag servers onto a group's header or into the group. ⌘-click to select several, ⇧-click to select a range — they all move together.
• Right-click a server › Move to Group › and pick a group, or Ungrouped to take it out. With several servers selected, it applies to all of them.
• Drag out to the top of the list or to the gap between two groups to make a server ungrouped again.

Dragging a server onto a pane on the right still connects to it.

No. When you delete a group, its servers move to Ungrouped, with their settings and Keychain passwords intact. Empty groups are deleted right away; for a group with servers in it, you're asked to confirm first.

Yes. Groups that older versions stored by name are converted into group folders the first time you open the new version, and every server stays in its group. Before converting, the original list is backed up to ~/Library/Application Support/MomentFTP/servers.v1-backup.json. Please don't open the older version afterwards — it can't read the new format.

Click the MomentFTP icon in the Dock and the main window appears. Earlier builds could occasionally start without a window; this is fixed in 1.0, which always shows the main window at launch. If you close the window with the red button, the app keeps running — click the Dock icon to bring it back.

Delete the app, then delete the folder ~/Library/Application Support/MomentFTP (for the Mac App Store version, ~/Library/Containers/com.moment.ftp), and remove the com.moment.ftp.credential items in Keychain Access.