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How to transfer files between Macs

by Steven Sande Mar 9th 2011 at 12:00AM

When two or more Macs are gathered in the name of Steve Jobs, there's a good chance that someone is going to want to transfer files between those computers.

Macworld's Kirk McElhearn, who also hangs out at TidBITS.com and is a fellow Take Control Ebooks author, has written an excellent tutorial on nine ways to transfer files from one Mac to another. Whether you're a Mac newbie or a longtime Mac-head, it's a good read.

McElhearn's nine methods include:

  • Email (although there are size limitations)
  • File sharing, found in System Preferences > Sharing
  • Using a shared disk such as a Time Capsule
  • Using iChat file transfer, which is great if you use iChat a lot since you just drag and drop files
  • Sync with Dropbox
  • Send files via Dropbox
  • Use MobileMe sharing (or use YouSendIt if the files exceed MobileMe's size limits)
  • Burn CDs or DVDs
  • Use a sneakernet with a USB thumb drive, SD card or external hard disk drive

McElhearn left FTP and several other transfer protocols off of his list, since they require a server. One of my favorite file transfer tools for Macs before Dropbox appeared on the scene was DropCopy (free for personal use on up to three Macs), a fast way to do drag-and-drop file transfers between Macs.

What other methods of file transfer between Macs can you think of? We'd love to hear some of your experiences in the comments.



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When two or more Macs are gathered in the name of Steve Jobs, there's a good chance that someone is going to want to transfer files...
 

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dsp

can you also transfer files using your iPod nano?

March 10 2011 at 8:35 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
staniks

How does "Burn CD/DVD" not fall under SneakerNet????

March 09 2011 at 3:48 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
rjbokleman

Why not use the FREE and unlimited Windows Live Mesh for Mac? It's only limited if you store in the cloud, it's unlimited if you simply sync between machines.

March 09 2011 at 1:26 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Byran

There's also a program called Papaya that's basically a local, personal DropBox. I've only used it a couple of times, but it basically amounts to you telling Papaya what file to share, and then you email out the link to the file. Unlike DropBox, it doesn't upload it anywhere—it still resides on your local machine. The email link is actually a secure link to that one file on your computer.

March 09 2011 at 12:19 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Bkrumme

What about scp? Everybody seems to forget that Mac OS X is a UNIX operating system under the hood. SCP is reliable, secure, and pretty darn easy once you get the hang of it.

March 09 2011 at 9:06 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
DJ Lift

You also forgot to mention DropCopy from 10base-t Interactive.
http://10base-t.com/macintosh-software/dropcopy

Works great!

March 09 2011 at 8:56 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
newdeal99

He must have two macs one of which is a macbook because he left out target disk mode...true the regular macbook can't do it but still if he is compiling some grand list he should at least include the fastest way to transfer files

March 09 2011 at 7:45 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
pangelav

Dropbox for sharing the family .epubs and pictures, sneakernet for everything else.

March 09 2011 at 7:22 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
xplora

Don't get my wrong on this, ftp is past it's time, but the reason used for not including FTP is just lame since so does 5 of the items listed (and on a technical level so does a 6th, but I'm letting file sharing slide since at least it doesn't mean an external server), email requires a server, dropbox is an external server (so thats both sync and sending), so is mobileme (which includes iDisk), and Time Capsule obviously is a file server in a wireless router.

If someone is going to say why they are not including something in a list, they should make sure their reason does not invalidate items they have included.

- annoyed

March 09 2011 at 5:45 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Michael

For command-line junkies and people not just using Macs, but also some other Unix or Linux:

Open System Preferences > Sharing and enable Remote Login. That will not only run an SSH server, but also enable SCP/SFTP as transfer protocol for files. So no need to mount drives before issuing file transfers, just remain in Terminal and type "scp @:/ " or start a sftp session ... which usually works as a last resort if there's a firewall between your computers that blocks all protocols except for http/https and ssh - so Back To My Mac might not work properly.

Of course, one could also use a graphical client like Cyberduck (which, by the way, is now available in version 4.0.1) ... but in that case, one would lose part of the versatility the shell provides.

March 09 2011 at 5:39 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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