Tabby SFTP UI Plugin

This plugin adds a Termius‑style two‑pane SFTP file manager to Tabby. It integrates directly with your existing SSH tabs and uses Tabby's native SFTP backend.

If you find this useful, please star the repo: growingupfirst/tabby-sftp-ui

Features

• SFTP‑UI button in terminal toolbar – opens the SFTP manager for the active SSH session.
• Two panes – local filesystem on the left, remote on the right.
• Drag & drop:
  • Between local and remote for uploads/downloads.
  • Within local pane and within remote pane for moves/renames.
  • From OS file manager into the remote pane for uploads.
• Transfer queue – visual list of active transfers with progress and cancel button.
• Navigation & UX:
  • Clickable folders, Up buttons, breadcrumb navigation.
  • Manual path input for local and remote.
  • Filtering by name, sortable columns (Name / Size / Modified).
  • Dynamic size and speed units (B / KB / MB / GB).
  • Optional "Show hidden" toggle for both panes.
  • Multi‑select with Ctrl/Cmd and Shift.
• File operations:
  • Rename, Delete (with in‑UI confirmation dialog), New Folder, Refresh.
  • Edit permissions (chmod style input).
  • On‑demand folder size calculation via context action.
• Remote file editing:
  • Double‑click a remote file to download it to a temp location, open with system default app, and automatically upload changes back to the remote when you save.
• Local convenience features:
  • Quick path presets (Home, Desktop, Documents, Downloads).
  • Favorite local paths stored in localStorage.
  • Interactive breadcrumbs with context menu to switch between sibling folders/drives.
• Profiles integration:
  • Top bar shows current SSH profile and recent profiles.
  • Clicking a recent profile opens a new SSH terminal tab.
• Safe recovery behavior:
  • SFTP tabs are not persisted across Tabby restarts (no stale/blank SFTP tabs).

Requirements

• Tabby desktop (tested around 1.0.163).
• Node.js and npm installed on your system.

Install

From Tabby Plugin Manager (planned)

Once published to the official registry:

1. Open Settings → Plugins in Tabby.
2. Search for “tabby-sftp-ui”.
3. Click Install, then restart Tabby.

Manual install (current)

1. Clone this repository:

git clone https://github.com/growingupfirst/tabby-sftp-ui
cd tabby-sftp-ui

2. Install dependencies:

npm install

3. Build the plugin:

npm run build

4. Install the built plugin into Tabby’s plugins directory:

# Windows
cd "%APPDATA%\tabby\plugins"
npm install "<path-to>/tabby-sftp-ui" --legacy-peer-deps

# macOS / Linux
cd ~/.config/tabby/plugins
npm install "/absolute/path/to/tabby-sftp-ui" --legacy-peer-deps

5. Restart Tabby completely (close all windows and start again).

Usage

1. Open an SSH session in Tabby.
2. In the session toolbar, click the SFTP‑UI button (next to Reconnect).
3. A new tab titled <session name> + SFTP will appear with the two‑pane file manager.
4. Use drag & drop, context actions, and the action bar to manage files.

Development

• Main plugin module: src/index.ts
• Core UI component: src/sftp-manager-tab.component.ts
• SFTP backend wrapper: src/sftp.service.ts
• Local file transfer adapters: src/local-transfers.ts
• SFTP‑UI tab launcher/service: src/sftp-ui.service.ts

To rebuild after changes:

npm run build

# Reinstall into Tabby plugin directory (see paths above)
cd "%APPDATA%\tabby\plugins"   # or ~/.config/tabby/plugins
npm install "<path-to>/tabby-sftp-ui" --legacy-peer-deps

Then restart Tabby.

Roadmap

• Better integration with Tabby’s plugin manager (one‑click install and updates).
• More granular progress details for large folder transfers.
• Optional inline file editor for small text files.
• Configurable keyboard shortcuts for common actions.

Changelog

• 0.2.4
  • Fix: OS drag-and-drop from Explorer
  • Fix: Multiple files drag-and-drop between panes works again.
• 0.2.3
  • Fix: Remote folders drag-and-drop (Remote → Local) works again.
  • Feature: Replace confirmation is now symmetric (both Local → Remote and Remote → Local).
  • UI: Added “Go up” row to the Local pane.
• 0.2.2
  • Integrate Tabby’s native startUploadFromDragEvent for more reliable OS drag-and-drop (files & folders).
  • Refine Delete key handling so it works normally inside input dialogs while still triggering delete in lists.
• 0.2.1
  • Fix: New Folder/Rename input dialog
  • Fix: Robust remote file edit sync-back
  • Feature: OS drag-and-drop into panes
• 0.2.0
  • UI: removed the main toolbar SFTP icon next to Settings (terminal button remains).
• 0.1.0
  • Initial release.

Problems

• When reopening Tabby, the SFTP UI tabs are blank. Please contact me in Telegram if you know how to fix this.