Anyone who works with servers knows it: transferring files over FTP on the Mac has always been a small compromise. On one side you have the legacy clients — hugely powerful but with interfaces frozen fifteen years ago: Java windows, blurry icons, labyrinthine menus. On the other, the minimal apps — pretty to look at, but that give up at the first slightly demanding transfer.
Upstream was born to close that gap. It's a fully native FTP, FTPS and SFTP client for macOS: the power you'd expect from a professional tool, inside an interface that finally feels like part of your Mac.
Local and remote, side by side
At the heart of Upstream is the classic dual-pane flow: your disk on the left, the server on the right. But with native macOS icons, breadcrumbs and drag & drop straight from the Finder. Drag a file from the desktop to the server and it goes. Drag it back and it comes down. No learning curve: if you can use the Finder, you already know Upstream.
A queue that never gives up
This is where many clients show their limits. Upstream handles concurrent, recursive transfers — entire folders, with everything inside them — and when the connection drops, the queue resumes on its own as soon as the line is back. All of this is built on SwiftNIO, the same asynchronous networking framework Apple uses for its high-performance services.
Start uploading a folder of hundreds of files, close the laptop, reopen it somewhere else: the queue picks up right where you left it.
Edit remote files like they're local
One of the features that truly changes the way you work: open a file that lives on the server directly in VS Code, TextMate or Xcode, edit it, save — and Upstream re-uploads it instantly, on every save. No more download-edit-reupload by hand. You just edit.
Secure by design
Credentials are never stored in the clear anywhere: they live in the macOS Keychain, inside the App Sandbox. Upstream respects the system's security model instead of working around it. Nothing ever leaves your Mac in the clear.
Thought through in the details
- Built-in Quick Look — preview remote files with the same spacebar press you use in the Finder.
- Folder sync — keep local and remote aligned without re-uploading everything each time.
- FTP, FTPS and SFTP — the protocols you actually need, all in one place.
- Native performance — no external runtimes, no clutter: just Swift and the Mac.
Buy it once. Use it forever.
Against the grain of half the software out there today, Upstream is not a subscription. There's a free version you can start with right away, and an Upstream FULL version that unlocks all the power: you pay once and it stays yours. No monthly fee to move your own files.
Why we built it
At AppJuice we use FTP every day. Upstream came out of a very concrete frustration: we wanted a tool that was as powerful as the legacy ones but also a pleasure to use. We wrote it in Swift from scratch, for the Mac and nothing else, with no cross-platform shortcuts. The result is the app we wished we could find ourselves.
Try it now
Upstream is available on the Mac App Store. Discover every feature and download it from the dedicated page: appjuice.it/upstream.
If you live in the terminal and in transfers, give us five minutes: you'll rarely go back.