Use Transmit to deal with MobileMe's iDisk
Jul 29, '10 07:30:00AM
Contributed by: asparria
Accessing iDisk through Finder is, in the best case, slow and unreliable. I've found that Transmit (Panic Inc.) is a fast, reliable and easy substitute to Finder.
Everywhere you can find opinions against using iDisk to synchronize data or to hold working copies; however, MobileMe has 20Gb of available capacity I wanted to use. After searching a lot, I have found that Transmit has native support for MobileMe (amongst others), lots of features, it is very fast and easy to use.
These hints are focused on basic iDisk usage, i.e. get you up and running in short time:
- Synchronizing folders: Go to 'Favorites' and connect to your MobileMe iDisk. Don't forget to save it in a favorite with remote and local paths defined. Then it's just a matter of pressing the Sync button.
- Save as 'on-demand', preserving folder structure: Again, go to 'Favorites' and connect to your MobileMe iDisk. Define remote and local paths and activate DockSend (don't forget to save in a favorite). Whenever you want to save a file, just drag and drop the file in Transmit Dock Icon. It will preserve the directory structure creating the necessary folders.
- Save files to predefined locations: This is very handy for non-technical users. Again, connect to your MobileMe, define a remote location, save it in favorites and press 'Save as Droplet.' Every time you drag and drop a file in the droplet the file is saved in the remote location.
One of the best surprises I had was the speed of transfers, it is extremely fast, even faster than Finder or Dropbox. It's also very reliable and ease of use.
[crarko adds: I tested this, and it works as described. I know we have a lot of Transmit users here, but both Cyberduck and Interarchy also support the WebDAV protocols to connect to iDisk, and offer sync functionality as well. Fetch does not at this point. Check your favorite FTP client and see what it has to offer. Pretty much any client that works at all will be faster than the Finder, in my experience.]
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