14 DAY TRIAL // Of the many FTP clients out there, Transmit in one of the best loved ones. This is largely due to its simple mirrored interface that makes it easy to navigate, upload and download. But Transmit is not just a pretty face, and has advanced features are sure to please even the pickiest of users.
The interface The main window is split into two parts, on the left you can see 'Your Stuff', and on the right you can see 'Their Stuff'. I must admit that the first time I ever used Transmit years ago, I found the interface a bit awkward, being used to other FTP clients that only displayed what was on the server. Many years have passed since then, and with OS X, the Transmit way of doing things seems much more natural.
You can use either the list or column view mode to browse through the stuff while a side drawer gives you quick access to your most used locations. If you work with multiple servers you can use Safari like tabs, and have a session open in each.
Much like paralel scrolling in some text editors, Transmit lets you link navigation of local and remote folders so that moving to a higher or lower-level folder in one switches to the corresponding folder in the other. It even has support for spring-loaded folders and moving around is easy using the keyboard, even in list mode, the shortcuts being very well thought out.
The preview drawer can be resized as much as you like and your screen allows for, and if you have a small screen you can press the little magnifying glass button to bring up a full size preview. You can also view, and even edit text files straight on the server.
Get connected Beside the obvious FTP and SFTP, and FTP over SSL (Secure Sockets Layer), Transmit also has support for WebDAV, which stands for Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning, with optional HTTPS or secure HTTP. This makes it ideal for web designers. If you don't dabble in web design you can use it to quickly access you iDisk, and with the advance synchronization features, you will never need to upload that file you just changed. It even has support for Automator, letting you use the tool you are already most familiar with for creating automation workflows.
Beside being great for automated tasks, Transmit also has plenty of niceties that make it great to work with for the occasional upload or download. First of all, the dock icon is permanently indicating what the application is doing. If you are uploading you will see a little up arrow, downloading will present a little down arrow, and when all the scheduled tasks are done it will notify you with a check mark.
It even comes with a dashboard widget that makes it fast and ridiculously simple to upload files on the fly. Just drag any file or folder into it and watch the Transmit truck haul it away. Bu this is just for simplicity, this concept is taken so much further, and it's called DockSend. When you drop a file or folder on the Transmit dock icon, Transmit looks for favorites which are DockSend-enabled. If the item dropped on the Transmit dock icon came from the local path associated with a DockSend-enabled favorite, it will connect to that favorite and upload the item. It even works with items in sub-folders of the configured local path. During DockSend, Transmit will navigate through sub-folders on the server, creating them if necessary, before uploading the file, so that the structure of the local folder is maintained. One single dock icon can take the place of many drop boxes, serve as an activity monitor and a start point for initiating connections.
Beside being incredibly user friendly, Transmit is also tech savvy, with AppleScript support. You can control many aspects of it through these scripts, and with the additional Automator support you can make it do pretty much anything.
The Good From the interface, to the automation and script support, Transmit does everything right.
The Bad The only real features it lacks is a hierarchical view mode for those old-school users who can't learn new tricks, and image editing directly on the server (although the latter has been promised by the devs).
The Truth This is one great piece of software regardless of whether you only use FTP a month or you use it constantly to keep your website up to date. Transmit has been around for a very long time and has been improving ever since, constantly adding features... it's one of the best loved FTP clients for the Mac.
Here are some screenshots, click to enlarge:
