FTP & Cloud Mounts

Iruka can mount FTP servers and cloud storage (S3, Backblaze B2, Cloudflare R2, MinIO) as folders you browse like any other. Under the hood these use rclone plus a FUSE filesystem layer.

Native protocols need nothing extra. SMB, AFP, NFS and WebDAV mount straight through macOS — the requirements below apply only to FTP, cloud, and SFTP.

Requirements

FTP, cloud and SFTP mounts all need the same one-time setup: the official rclone plus a FUSE layer. It is three steps, and the order matters — run step 2 before step 1 and the installer will appear to succeed while changing nothing.

Step 1 — Remove Homebrew's rclone. Skip this if you have never run brew install rclone.

brew uninstall rclone

Homebrew's macOS rclone is compiled without mount support and refuses to mount. Leaving it in place also breaks step 2: the official installer sees that same version already present and skips. Check with brew list rclone if you are unsure.

Step 2 — Install the official rclone from rclone.org. Both lines.

curl https://rclone.org/install.sh | sudo bash
sudo chmod 755 /usr/local/bin/rclone

The chmod matters: the installer occasionally leaves the binary readable only to root, which prevents macOS from verifying its signature when Iruka launches it (you'd see "Could not prepare FTP credentials").

Step 3 — Install fuse-t, the FUSE layer.

brew install --cask fuse-t

We recommend fuse-t over macFUSE: it runs in userspace, so it needs no kernel extension, no reboot, and no approval in System Settings — and it works on locked-down or company-managed (MDM) Macs where macFUSE cannot load. macFUSE is not required.

Confirm all three landed — the rclone path must be /usr/local/bin/rclone, not a Homebrew Cellar path:

which rclone          # /usr/local/bin/rclone
rclone version        # prints a version, not a mount error
ls /usr/local/lib/libfuse-t.dylib

Iruka checks all three when you open a connection dialog and lists the steps still outstanding, each with its command to copy — before you enter any details, so you never wait through a failed mount to find out.

Connecting to an FTP Server

1. Click + beside the sidebar and choose Connect to Server (or use the Network section)
2. Select the FTP tab and fill in host, port (21), username and password
3. Leave Use TLS (FTPS) off unless your server requires it — see the note below
4. Click Connect

The server mounts under Connected in the sidebar. Right-click it to unmount when you're done.

Saving a connection

Tick Save this connection in the dialog (and optionally give it a name) to keep it. Saved servers — SMB, AFP, FTP, NFS and WebDAV — appear in the Servers section of the sidebar; click one to reconnect in a single step, or right-click to Edit or Delete. Passwords are stored locally in Application Support with user-only (0600) permissions, so reconnecting never prompts. You can hide the Servers section in Preferences → Sidebar.

A note on TLS (FTPS)

Enable Use TLS (FTPS) only if the server offers it. TLS verifies the server's certificate against the hostname you typed, so if the server presents a certificate for a different name (shared hosts often serve their provider's certificate, e.g. *.greengeeks.net), the connection fails with a certificate error. In that case connect without TLS, or use the exact hostname the certificate was issued for.

Cloud Storage

1. Click the Cloud section in the sidebar and press +
2. Choose a provider (S3, B2, R2, MinIO), then enter the bucket/container and credentials
3. Save, then click the connection to mount it

Credentials are stored locally in Application Support with 0600 permissions (not the Keychain). The same rclone + fuse-t requirements above apply.