Protocol Overview

AeroFTP supports 23 protocols and cloud storage providers natively. Each protocol is implemented in Rust with full streaming support, credential encryption via the OS keyring, and integration with AeroSync, AeroAgent, and the CLI.

Protocol Comparison

Server Protocols (5)

OAuth Cloud Providers (7)

Direct Auth Cloud Providers (10)

Developer Platform (1)

Protocol Categories

Server Protocols (Self-Hosted)

These connect to servers you control. You provide the hostname, port, and credentials.

• FTP -- Traditional unencrypted file transfer. Suitable for legacy servers and shared hosting on trusted networks.
• FTPS -- FTP secured with TLS/SSL. Supports both Explicit (STARTTLS on port 21) and Implicit (port 990) modes. AeroFTP detects TLS downgrade attempts and warns the user.
• SFTP -- Secure file transfer over SSH. The recommended choice for self-hosted servers. Supports password and SSH key authentication with TOFU host key verification.
• WebDAV -- HTTP-based file access over HTTPS. Used by Nextcloud, Seafile, and many NAS devices. Supports Basic and Digest authentication.
• S3-Compatible -- Object storage using the S3 API. Works with AWS, Wasabi, Backblaze B2, and any S3-compatible endpoint.

OAuth Cloud Providers

These authenticate through the provider's OAuth2 PKCE flow. AeroFTP opens a browser window for authorization and stores tokens securely in the vault.

• Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, Box, pCloud, Zoho WorkDrive, Koofr

Direct Auth Cloud Providers

These use API keys, email/password, session tokens, or personal access tokens directly. No browser-based OAuth flow is required.

• MEGA -- Zero-knowledge E2E encryption with client-side AES.
• Azure Blob -- Enterprise object storage with HMAC signing or SAS tokens.
• 4shared -- OAuth 1.0 with HMAC-SHA1 signing (RFC 5849).
• Filen -- E2E encrypted with PBKDF2 key derivation and AES-256-GCM. Optional 2FA.
• Internxt -- E2E encrypted with PBKDF2 + BIP39 mnemonic and AES-256-CTR.
• kDrive -- Infomaniak cloud storage with API token authentication.
• Jottacloud -- Norwegian cloud with Personal Login Token authentication.
• FileLu -- API key authentication with file password protection and privacy controls.
• Yandex Disk -- OAuth2 token-based access to Yandex cloud storage.
• OpenDrive -- Session-based authentication with MD5 checksums and zlib compression.

Developer Platform

• GitHub -- Repository file browser and manager. Supports OAuth2, Personal Access Tokens (PAT), and GitHub App .pem key authentication. Browse, download, upload, and delete files across unlimited repositories.

WebDAV Presets

AeroFTP includes pre-configured WebDAV presets for popular services:

When using a WebDAV preset, AeroFTP automatically configures the endpoint path. You only need to provide your server hostname and credentials.

S3-Compatible Presets

AeroFTP supports any S3-compatible service. Built-in presets auto-configure the endpoint and region:

For Cloudflare R2, a dedicated Account ID field is shown in the connection form. The endpoint is computed automatically from the account ID.

Feature Matrix

Trash Management

Not all providers expose a trash/recycle bin API. The following table shows which protocols support trash operations in AeroFTP:

File Versioning

Share Links

Tags and Labels

Integration Compatibility

AeroSync

All 23 protocols are supported by AeroSync for bidirectional synchronization. Server protocols (FTP, FTPS, SFTP, WebDAV, S3) and all cloud providers can be used as sync targets via the AeroCloud background sync engine.

AeroSync features available across all protocols:

• Bidirectional and unidirectional sync
• Conflict resolution (keep local, keep remote, keep newer, skip)
• Sync profiles (Mirror, Two-way, Backup, Pull, Remote Backup)
• Transfer journal with checkpoint/resume
• Post-transfer verification (size, mtime, SHA-256)
• Configurable retry with exponential backoff
• Bandwidth throttling
• Dry-run mode with export

CLI Support

All 23 protocols are accessible from the aeroftp-cli command-line tool using URL-based connections:

aeroftp ls sftp://user@myserver.com/path/
aeroftp get s3://mybucket/file.txt
aeroftp put ftp://user@host/upload/ ./local-file.txt
aeroftp sync ftp://user@host/ ./local-dir/
aeroftp tree webdav://user@nextcloud.example.com/remote.php/dav/files/user/

The CLI supports 13 commands (connect, ls, get, put, mkdir, rm, mv, cat, find, stat, df, tree, sync), batch scripting via .aeroftp files, glob pattern transfers, and --json output for automation.

AeroAgent server_exec

AeroAgent can execute file operations on saved servers through the server_exec tool. This tool resolves credentials from the vault in Rust and never exposes passwords to the AI model.

The server_exec tool supports 10 operations: ls, cat, get, put, mkdir, rm, mv, stat, find, and df. Server names are matched with fuzzy matching against saved server profiles.