Transmit

Current Version: 4.0.6 (July 7, 2010)

Transmit (formerly Transit) is one of the newer Mac FTP clients, and it has a promising premise: its look and feel mimics the elegance of the Finder.

Transmit 4.0 brought the following major enhancements:

• Engine
  • Transmit Twin-Turbo Engine
  • Up to 25x faster for small files
  • Multi-Connection Transfers
  • For faster batch transfers
  • Integrated Transfers View
  • FXP Support
  • For direct server-to-server xfer
  • Bandwidth Limiting
• Interface
  • Completely Reimagined
  • Cleaner, cooler, cake-ier.
  • Tear-Off Tabs
  • Twin Progress Bar
  • See current and overall progress
  • Local-Local / Remote-Remote
  • Cover Flow
  • Image Thumbnail View
  • Disclosable List View
  • Quick Look
  • Custom Favorites Icons
  • Labels
  • One / Two Pane Switcher
  • Just one view if you want
  • Extra-Compact Minimum Size
• Sync
  • Friendly File Sync
  • A nice, plain-English bubble talks you through the sync.
  • Compare via File Size
• Navigation
  • Path Bar Pro
  • Places Pop-Up
  • Jump to your most-used folders
  • Improved Folder Linking
  • Navigate both sides at once
  • Multi-Touch Navigation
  • 3-finger swipe, back or forward
  • Show Folders Above Files
• Transfers
  • Advanced File Skipping
  • Skipping files is not just for sync anymore: set rules for anytime.
  • More Flexible Default Permissions
  • Advanced Server Preferences
  • Hard-core options now exposed
  • Continue on Errors
  • Easily Repeat Transfers
  • Right-click a transfer to re-do it
• Amazon S3
  • CloudFront Support
  • Deploy your files via CDN
  • Bucket Logging
• SSH
  • Send SSH Command
  • Zip, UnZip, etc.
  • One-Click SFTP Key Import
  • Instead of a password, use key
  • View Secure Certificates
• Misc
  • Overhauled AppleScript
  • Automatic Unicode Detection
  • Better Transcript Logging
  • Instant-Favorite Button
  • Line Numbering in Built-In Editor
  • Extensive Favorite Importers
  • Simplified External Editing
  • Auto-Updating via Sparkle
  • Fully 64-Bit
  • Improved Copy URL / Copy Path

Version 4.0.6 makes the following additional changes:

• Fixed a possible exception when leaving column view
• Fixed issue with remote refresh getting stuck after immediate disconnect
• Fixed a situation where "Loading" flickers constantly in the status bar
• Fixed a serious issue when working with Amazon S3 buckets created via JetS3t
• File listings are no longer truncated on certain FTP with TLS/SSL servers
• Fixed possible AppleScript error when called from 3rd party applications
• Folder linking with two remote folders now works more reliably
• Files in subfolders now draw indeterminate progress bar correctly when paused
• Renaming remote directory with a "." in name no longer causes unnecessary warning
• External editing in column view on Mac OS X 10.5 is now more reliable
• Fixed a "couldn't get attributes" error when doing Get Info on certain servers

Transmit supports Mac OS X's built-in SSH configuration files, which means that when you connect to any SFTP host for which you have a public/private key pair defined (whether defined globally in /etc/ssh_config, or on a per-user basis in ~/.ssh/config), Transmit can connect using those keys, without requiring additional configuration within Transmit itself. I consider this to be essential functionality for a Mac OS X FTP client.

Existing users can upgrade from Transmit 3 to Transmit 4 for $19. Transmit comes as a free, feature-full 15 day downloadable demo; after 15 days, favorites are disabled and sessions are limited to 10 minutes.

Transmit has come a long way and, with Interarchy, is one of the three "Essential" FTP clients on the Orchard. Its elegant interface pushes the envelope for FTP client usability - a difficult thing to do in this day and age, where FTP interfaces have been refined to death. Bookmark management is a snap; the interface is completely consistent with the Mac OS experience; it allows editing of remote files directly within the program (or with BBEdit); it allows you to move files around on remote servers without having to download them to your computer first; and - most importantly - it's fast and flexible (thanks to the NcFTP engine). The authors are also responsive to suggestions for improvement. If you need a powerful and easy-to-use FTP client for Mac OS X, Transmit should be one of your first considerations.