Settings and appearance

Choose light or dark mode, your terminal app, your downloads folder and a few defaults. Open AirSCP ▸ Settings… (⌘,). Every change applies at once.

Settings: Appearance, Files and Security

Appearance

System (the default) follows your Mac’s light or dark mode. Light or Dark keeps AirSCP in one of them.

  • Light is the Paper look: white panes on a grey background, and black for the selected row, the active tab and the main buttons.
  • Dark is the Night Harbor look: a deep blue-grey, with a colour for each kind of thing (servers blue, Remote Desktop purple, proxies orange) and glowing dots for connected servers.

Your Mac’s accent colour, Increase contrast and Reduce transparency (System Settings ▸ Accessibility ▸ Display) still apply. With Increase contrast on, the dark look drops its blue tint.

AirSCP's window; it follows the appearance you choose

Files

Setting What it does
Open terminals in Terminal (default) or iTerm, for Open Terminal, Run in Terminal and Kill with sudo.
Downloads folder Where Download To… starts, and where Download as .tar.gz puts the archive when the other pane isn’t this Mac. Drags and the Download button go to the folder shown.
Show hidden files in new panes Off by default. Each pane can still switch with ⇧⌘..
Copied files keep their original date Off by default: copies are dated now. On: they keep the file’s own date (scp -p).
Ask before deleting on a server On by default.
Always calculate folder sizes Off by default: folders show “—” until you click Σ.

Security

How new hosts check their server’s key, and new desktops their server’s certificate. Ask unless you change it. See Self-signed certificates and corporate networks.

Keys

New keys go in: the folder where New Key Pair and Import Key save keys. ~/.ssh by default, where ssh finds them by itself.

Agents

Allow AI agents to control AirSCP (MCP): off by default. See AI agents (MCP).

Advanced

Debug logging: off by default. On, AirSCP writes a detailed log of connections and transfers, to help find what went wrong. Turn it off when done. See Turn on debug logs.

Settings: Advanced, with Debug logging

Tips

  • The ? button at the bottom of Settings opens this page.