SFTP Workbench

A Dreamweaver-style SFTP/FTP workflow for VS Code: folder compare with click-to-diff, staged transfers with overwrite confirmation, parallel connections, and a remote explorer — on top of the classic sync/upload-on-save workflow.

Credits & lineage

SFTP Workbench stands on the shoulders of two projects and their authors:

liximomo wrote the original vscode-sftp extension, whose architecture and feature set still form the core of this one.

Natizyskunk (Natan FOURIÉ) maintained and extended it for years as Natizyskunk/vscode-sftp (marketplace listing) after the original was deprecated.

This fork builds on Natizyskunk's line. If you find it useful, please consider supporting the original authors.

Why this fork

The upstream extension is a great sync tool, but it stops short of a full folder workflow: there is no way to see what differs between local and remote before transferring, transfers silently overwrite whatever is on the other side, and everything funnels through a single connection. SFTP Workbench adds the missing Dreamweaver-like layer — compare first, confirm overwrites, skip identical files, watch progress, and run transfers in parallel — while keeping the configuration format and every command of the original.

Features

New in SFTP Workbench

Folder Compare — compare a local folder against its remote counterpart, grouped into Modified, Timestamp Only, New Remote, and New Local, with click-to-diff. Includes group (whole-category) actions, compare-selected-files, reveal in local/remote explorer, per-file delete, and a persisted Flat / Group-by-Path layout toggle. See Folder Compare.
Clear Compare — reset the Folder Compare view back to empty on demand.
Overwrite confirmation (confirmOverwrite) — explicit uploads/downloads prompt before overwriting an existing destination file; folder-level transfers show one summary modal with a Review in Compare View option.
Diff-only transfer (skipUnmodified) — explicit folder/project/multi-file transfers skip files already identical on the destination, the way Sync does.
Per-operation progress — determinate per-file progress notifications with cancel, plus global pause/resume/stop for all transfers.
Parallel transfers (maxConnections) — a per-profile connection pool so uploads, downloads, syncs, and folder walks genuinely run in parallel.

Inherited from vscode-sftp

Sync local ↔ remote (both directions)
Upload on save, file watcher, temp-file support
Remote Explorer for browsing the server
Multiple configurations, contexts, and switchable profiles
Connection hopping (SSH proxy)
FTP / FTPS / SFTP protocols

Roadmap

Password security in config — move stored passwords out of plaintext .vscode/sftp.json into VS Code's SecretStorage, with a migration path for existing configs.
Custom location for the SFTP config file — point the extension at an sftp.json outside the default .vscode/ folder.
Configurable download location — a per-profile download destination so explicit downloads can land outside the working context folder.
Remaining Staged Transfer Workflow phases.

Installation

Install SFTP Workbench from the VS Code Marketplace (extension id: heuristics-io.sftp-workbench).

⚠️ Before installing: disable or uninstall any other vscode-sftp variant (liximomo.sftp, Natizyskunk.sftp, or other forks). They register the same sftp.* commands, views, and settings — running two at once will make commands collide.

Select Extensions (Ctrl + Shift + X).
Disable/uninstall any other SFTP extension variants.
Search for SFTP Workbench and install.
Voilà!

Your existing .vscode/sftp.json keeps working unchanged — the configuration format, command ids, and settings are fully compatible with vscode-sftp.

Documentation

Usage

If the latest files are already on a remote server, you can start with an empty local folder, then download your project, and from that point sync.

In VS Code, open a local directory you wish to sync to the remote server (or create an empty directory that you wish to first download the contents of a remote server folder in order to edit locally).
Ctrl+Shift+P on Windows/Linux or Cmd+Shift+P on Mac open command palette, run SFTP: config command.
A basic configuration file will appear named sftp.json under the .vscode directory, open and edit the configuration parameters with your remote server information.

For instance:

{
    "name": "Profile Name",
    "host": "name_of_remote_host",
    "protocol": "ftp",
    "port": 21,
    "secure": true,
    "username": "username",
    "remotePath": "/public_html/project", // <--- This is the path which will be downloaded if you "Download Project"
    "password": "password",
    "uploadOnSave": false
}

The password parameter in sftp.json is optional, if left out you will be prompted for a password on sync. Note： backslashes and other special characters must be escaped with a backslash.

Save and close the sftp.json file.
Ctrl+Shift+P on Windows/Linux or Cmd+Shift+P on Mac open command palette.
Type sftp and you'll now see a number of other commands. You can also access many of the commands from the project's file explorer context menus.
A good one to start with if you want to sync with a remote folder is SFTP: Download Project. This will download the directory shown in the remotePath setting in sftp.json to your local open directory.
Done - you can now edit locally and after each save it will upload to sync your remote file with the local copy.
Enjoy!

For detailed explanations please see the documentation.

Example configurations

You can see the full list of configuration options in the configuration docs.

Simple

{
  "host": "host",
  "username": "username",
  "remotePath": "/remote/workspace"
}

Profiles

{
  "username": "username",
  "password": "password",
  "remotePath": "/remote/workspace/a",
  "watcher": {
    "files": "dist/*.{js,css}",
    "autoUpload": false,
    "autoDelete": false
  },
  "profiles": {
    "dev": {
      "host": "dev-host",
      "remotePath": "/dev",
      "uploadOnSave": true
    },
    "prod": {
      "host": "prod-host",
      "remotePath": "/prod"
    }
  },
  "defaultProfile": "dev"
}

Note： context and watcher are only available at root level.

Use SFTP: Set Profile to switch profile.

Multiple Context

The context must not be same.

[
  {
    "name": "server1",
    "context": "project/build",
    "host": "host",
    "username": "username",
    "password": "password",
    "remotePath": "/remote/project/build"
  },
  {
    "name": "server2",
    "context": "project/src",
    "host": "host",
    "username": "username",
    "password": "password",
    "remotePath": "/remote/project/src"
  }
]

Note： name is required in this mode.

Connection Hopping

You can connect to a target server through a proxy with ssh protocol.

Note： Variable substitution is not working in a hop configuration.

Single Hop

local -> hop -> target

{
  "name": "target",
  "remotePath": "/path/in/target",

  // hop
  "host": "hopHost",
  "username": "hopUsername",
  "privateKeyPath": "/Users/localUser/.ssh/id_rsa", // <-- The key file is assumed on the local.

  "hop": {
    // target
    "host": "targetHost",
    "username": "targetUsername",
    "privateKeyPath": "/Users/hopUser/.ssh/id_rsa", // <-- The key file is assumed on the hop.
  }
}

Multiple Hop

local -> hopa -> hopb -> target

{
  "name": "target",
  "remotePath": "/path/in/target",

  // hopa
  "host": "hopAHost",
  "username": "hopAUsername",
  "privateKeyPath": "/Users/hopAUsername/.ssh/id_rsa" // <-- The key file is assumed on the local.

  "hop": [
    // hopb
    {
      "host": "hopBHost",
      "username": "hopBUsername",
      "privateKeyPath": "/Users/hopaUser/.ssh/id_rsa" // <-- The key file is assumed on the hopa.
    },

    // target
    {
      "host": "targetHost",
      "username": "targetUsername",
      "privateKeyPath": "/Users/hopbUser/.ssh/id_rsa", // <-- The key file is assumed on the hopb.
    }
  ]
}

Configuration in User Setting

You can use remote to tell sftp to get the configuration from remote-fs (a separate extension, also by liximomo).

In User Setting:

"remotefs.remote": {
  "dev": {
    "scheme": "sftp",
    "host": "host",
    "username": "username",
    "rootPath": "/path/to/somewhere"
  },
  "projectX": {
    "scheme": "sftp",
    "host": "host",
    "username": "username",
    "privateKeyPath": "/Users/xx/.ssh/id_rsa",
    "rootPath": "/home/foo/some/projectx"
  }
}

In sftp.json:

{
  "remote": "dev",
  "remotePath": "/home/xx/",
  "uploadOnSave": false,
  "ignore": [".vscode", ".git", ".DS_Store"]
}

Folder Compare

Compare a local folder with its remote counterpart and see, per file, what differs:

Modified — exists on both sides but the content differs (size differs, or same size with a differing modification time).
Timestamp Only — identical size but the modification time differs. On FTP this is skipped (LIST mtimes are unreliable), so the group only appears for SFTP.
New Remote — exists only on the remote.
New Local — exists only locally.

How to use it:

Right-click a folder in the explorer (or a folder in the Remote Explorer), open the SFTP submenu, and pick Compare Folder with Remote; or run SFTP: Compare Active Folder with Remote from the command palette.
The Folder Compare view in the SFTP activity bar container shows the groups above (empty groups are hidden). ignore rules from your config apply.
Open the view's ... menu and choose Group by Path to nest folders below each status, or Show Flat List to restore the filename + parent-path list. The choice is saved for the workspace; switching layout does not re-run comparison.
Click a Modified or Timestamp Only entry to open a diff. Use the per-entry inline actions to download, upload, or match-timestamp an entry; the comparison re-runs afterwards. The refresh button re-runs the comparison at any time; the clear button next to it empties the view.

To compare just a file or a handful of files, select them (in the explorer, the Remote Explorer, or an editor tab), open the SFTP submenu, and pick Compare File with Remote. Only those files load into the view, and Refresh re-runs that same selection instead of widening to the parent folder. From a Remote Explorer file you can also pick Diff with Local to open a direct diff of that remote file against its local copy.

Right-click a compare file or a path folder to reveal it on the side guaranteed to exist by its status:

Status	Reveal	Per-file delete
Modified / Timestamp Only	Local Explorer and Remote Explorer	None
New Remote	Remote Explorer	Delete on Remote (modal confirm)
New Local	Local Explorer	Delete Locally (modal confirm)

Delete warnings name the exact relative path and affect only that file. Path-folder nodes are organizational: they can be revealed, but cannot be transferred or deleted as a batch.

Group (whole-category) actions

Right-click a group header to act on every file in that category at once. The offered actions are context-aware, and the destructive ones require a modal confirmation naming the file count:

Group	Actions
Modified	Download from Remote / Upload to Remote — overwrite one side with the other (confirm; cannot be undone).
Timestamp Only	Match Timestamp (Use Remote) / Match Timestamp (Use Local) — align mtimes without transferring content (no confirm).
New Remote	Download from Remote — pull all remote-only files locally. Delete on Remote — remove them from the server (confirm).
New Local	Upload to Remote — push all local-only files. Delete Locally — remove them from disk (confirm).

Files are processed sequentially (FTP serializes on a single control connection), then the comparison refreshes once.

Note: with a non-zero remoteTimeOffsetInHours the Modified group may over-report changes (known upstream time-offset round-trip issue).

Remote Explorer

remote-explorer-preview

Remote Explorer lets you explore files in remote. You can open Remote Explorer by:

Run Command View: Show SFTP.
Click SFTP view in Activity Bar.

You can only view a files content with Remote Explorer. Run command SFTP: Edit in Local to edit it in local.

Multiple Select

You are able to select multiple files/folders at once on the remote server to download and upload. You can do it simply by holding down Ctrl or Shift while selecting all desired files, just like on the regular explorer view.

Note： You need to manually refresh the parent folder after you delete a file if the explorer isn't correctly updated.

Order

You can order the remote Explorer by adding the remoteExplorer.order parameter inside your sftp.json config file.

In sftp.json:

{
  "remoteExplorer": {
    "order": 1 // <-- Default value is 0.
  }
}

Debug

Open User Settings.

On Windows/Linux - File > Preferences > Settings
On macOS - Code > Preferences > Settings

Set sftp.debug to true and reload vscode.
View the logs in View > Output > sftp.

FAQ

You can see all the Frequently Asked Questions here.

Credits & support the original authors

SFTP Workbench takes no donations. If this extension saves you time, please support the people who built the foundation:

Natizyskunk — Buy Me a Coffee · PayPal · PayPal.me
liximomo — original author of vscode-sftp

SFTP Workbench

Heuristics-io

SFTP Workbench

Credits & lineage

Why this fork

Features

New in SFTP Workbench

Inherited from vscode-sftp

Roadmap

Installation

Documentation

Usage

Example configurations

Simple

Profiles

Multiple Context

Connection Hopping

Single Hop

Multiple Hop

Configuration in User Setting

Folder Compare

Group (whole-category) actions

Remote Explorer

Multiple Select

Order

Debug

FAQ

Credits & support the original authors