Support

Before you write

Including these details means we can usually answer in one reply instead of three:

• Your macOS version (Apple menu → About This Mac).
• The MinoSSH version — shown in Settings → About.
• What you expected to happen, and what happened instead.
• The exact text of any error shown in the status bar, or the last lines of the terminal.
• Whether the server is reachable from Terminal with the same command (ssh user@host). That single check tells us whether the problem is in the app or on the network.

Please do not send passwords or private keys. If a command contains a secret, replace the secret before pasting.

Troubleshooting a connection

1. The first connection to a new host

MinoSSH drives the macOS ssh binary, and it is configured with StrictHostKeyChecking=accept-new. What that means in practice:

• A host you have never connected to is accepted without a prompt, and its key is written to your ~/.ssh/known_hosts — the same record a terminal would keep.
• A host whose key has changed since that record was made is refused, exactly as OpenSSH would refuse it. That is the protection against a man-in-the-middle, and it is deliberately not bypassed.

If a key has legitimately changed (a rebuilt server, for example), remove the old entry from known_hosts yourself — ssh-keygen -R host — and connect again. The app will not do it for you.

2. The password prompt

When a site has no saved password, a prompt appears before the session opens. Two things are worth knowing:

• “Save to site” is a choice, not a default. Leave it unticked and the password is kept in memory for that session only; disconnect or close the tab and it is gone.
• Cancelling cancels. Pressing Cancel abandons the connection instead of asking again — you will not get a second identical prompt. Start the connection again when you are ready.

3. “Connection refused”, “timed out”, “permission denied”

• Connection refused — nothing is listening on that port. Check the port (22 is the default) and that the SSH service is running.
• Operation timed out — usually a firewall, a VPN that is not connected, or a host that only accepts connections from certain addresses. The app gives up after 15 seconds.
• Permission denied — the username, password or key was rejected. If the site uses a key, confirm the path points at the private key (not the .pub) and that its permissions are 600.

4. Servers that use two-factor or keyboard-interactive login

MinoSSH answers password prompts. Servers that ask additional questions during login — a one-time code, a second factor, an account-expiry notice — are handled by OpenSSH, and any such question appears in the terminal pane during the session. If your server requires an interactive challenge before the shell, connect from Terminal once to confirm the server's behaviour; the app does not wrap that flow.

The file browser

Why is the file list greyed out?

Because the session is not connected. The status bar above it says so, and the two buttons at the top right are Reconnect and Edit Site. A file browser without a live connection would either fail every action or pretend to work, so it is disabled instead.

Nothing reconnects on its own

If you pressed Disconnect, the app stays disconnected — switching tabs and coming back will not dial the server again. Use Reconnect. This is deliberate: a session you ended should not come back behind your back.

The folder is empty but the terminal shows files

• The SFTP browser uses the server's SFTP subsystem, which some minimal servers disable. If sftp user@host fails in Terminal, the subsystem is off on the server and nothing in the app can change that.
• A hidden-files difference is possible too: dotfiles are listed, but the folder you are in may genuinely be empty.

Permissions

The file list has a permissions column showing the usual drwxr-xr-x style string. Right-click a file or folder and choose Set Permissions… to toggle read, write and execute for owner, group and others.

• For folders, a recursive switch applies the change to everything inside — useful for public_html trees, dangerous if you get the mode wrong.
• The change is sent as a plain chmod over the existing session, so the server's own rules (and your account's privileges) still apply.

Uploading and downloading

• Upload from the toolbar or drag files into the list.
• Selecting one file and choosing Download asks where to save it. Selecting several asks for a folder and puts them all there.
• Progress, speed and ETA appear in the bar along the bottom of the window. If a transfer fails, the reason is shown there instead of disappearing.

Why do folders open faster the second time?

The first action opens a multiplexed SSH connection that the terminal, the file list and every transfer then reuse, so later operations skip the handshake and authentication. The connection is kept for an hour of inactivity.

Frequently asked questions

Still stuck?

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