Upload, download and copy
Move files and folders between your computer and the connected machine, or copy them within the machine. Every transfer appears in a queue you can watch and cancel, and nothing that already exists is ever overwritten.
Prerequisites
A connected workspace with file access. Folder transfers additionally need a provider that supports them — SFTP does. Your account's permissions apply on the server, and your own on your computer.
Steps
Upload
From a Files window, choose the Upload files toolbar button, or Upload files… / Upload folder… from the folder menu. Your system file picker opens; what you choose is uploaded into the folder you are viewing.
Download
Select one or more items and choose Download… for a single file — which lets you pick the name — or Download files… for a selection, which asks for a destination folder. Folders download whole, including empty ones.
Copy within the host
Copy to folder… copies a regular file to another folder on the same machine, using the queue rather than your computer's network link twice.
Watch the queue
The Transfers panel appears at the bottom of the Files window, with the number of active items and Clear finished. Each row shows the name, direction and progress, such as To host · 15.0 MB / 23.4 MB, and a state:
| State | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Scanning · n items… | Discovering what a folder contains. |
| Transferring… / Copying… / Moving… | Bytes are moving. |
| Finishing… | Publishing the result at its destination. |
| Queued | Waiting for a slot. |
| Completed, Canceled, Failed | Final outcomes, kept in the list until you clear them. |
| Cancel failed | Cancellation did not take; try again. |
Cancel a row with its ✕. Cancelling is a request: a transfer already finishing may still complete, and completed items in a folder transfer stay where they are — nothing is rolled back.
Copy between ShellCanvas and File Explorer (Windows)
On Windows the clipboard works in both directions:
- From ShellCanvas: copy files or folders in Files, then paste in Explorer. The bytes stream when Explorer pastes, so keep ShellCanvas and the connection open until it finishes.
- From Explorer: copy there, then Paste here in a Files window to upload.
Explorer handles its own progress and collision prompts for the first direction. A ShellCanvas Cut pasted into Explorer copies the item and keeps the remote original.
Expected result
Transfers run up to four at a time across the desktop, with the rest queued. Destinations that already exist are refused rather than replaced, and interrupted work leaves the parts that completed in place, with a message naming the destination.
Limitations
- Never overwrites. An upload, download or copy onto an existing name fails; choose another name. A folder transfer needs a destination that does not exist yet, and folders are not merged.
- No resume and no automatic retry. A failed transfer restarts from the beginning.
- The queue is in memory — quitting discards it, and the desktop blocks closing a window or disconnecting while a transfer is active.
- Limits: 32 queued or running transfers, 4 running at once, and the 50 most recent finished rows per window.
- Explorer's clipboard is bounded: at most 250,000 items per offer, and each path must stay under 260 UTF-16 units. Larger selections are refused with a suggestion to use Download.
- Links and special files are skipped in folder transfers rather than followed.
- Cross-host copying is not available — download to your computer, then upload to the other machine.
- Permissions, timestamps and ownership are not copied to the destination.
- The temporary-files drive needs space for a folder transfer's metadata; when it fills, the transfer reports storage exhaustion and cleans up after itself.
Related guides
- Browse and manage files — where transfers start.
- Local drives and mounted filesystems — using a remote folder as a drive instead of copying.
- File, save and transfer problems — refusals and what they mean.
- Transfers API — the same machinery for app developers.