FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)

• Where do I get a username and password?
• Can I connect to an FTP server?
• WinSCP gives warning that the server’s host key was not found in the cache. What does this mean?
• How do I know if the connection is secure?
• I get the message “Received too large (??? B) SFTP packet” when I login. What is the problem?
• When I click the “Login” button, the program starts connecting, but then it displays some error message and quits. What am I doing wrong?
• Where should I type the IP address of my remote host?
• How can I use WinSCP with OpenSSH for Windows?
• Why does WinSCP keep on asking me for a session password?

• Can I transfer files between two remote servers with WinSCP (FXP)?
• When I drop files outside of WinSCP, they are moved to the drop target. I want to copy them. How do I do that?
• File transfer speed is very low. WinSCP does not utilize all available bandwidth. How do I improve the transfer speed?
• Downloaded files are stored first to a temporary directory and only after that, they are moved to the destination directory. How do I prevent storing files to a temporary directory?
• I need to overwrite a remote file that isn’t owned by me, but I’m member of its group. The file has write permission for group. After transfer I get a message like “Upload of file <filename> was successful, but error occurred while setting the permissions and/or timestamp”
• Where can I change the file transfer mode (binary, ascii) or enable the auto-select transfer mode option?
• Why is the timestamp of uploaded/downloaded file different from the timestamp of the source file?
• Can I transfer file larger then 4 GB (or 2 GB)?
• When I attempt to copy files, I get an Error 127. What does this mean?

• How can I configure the default local or remote directory for the session?
• How do I save a session, so that I don’t need to fill in all the login information every time I start WinSCP?

How can I do, if the home folder in the “root”, there’s a folder named “www”? Do I have to replace that folder, with an other “www” in which there’s my updated website folder?

• I need to upload files to my server automatically at specified time. Can this be done using WinSCP?
• My script works fine when executed manually, but fails when run by Windows Scheduler or a similar tool. What am I doing wrong?
• How do I configure session and/or transfer settings for which there are no script commands?

• How do I change user after login (e.g. su root)?
• Can I change my account password with WinSCP?
• Can I have a local directory in both panels (turn WinSCP into file manager)?
• How do I change drive on the remote panel?
• How do I make WinSCP show localized and/or UTF-8 encoded (Unicode) filenames correctly?
• Why can’t I edit more than one file with my external editor?
• Can WinSCP show me HTTP URL address for the selected file?
• What do direction options (local, remote, both) for Synchronization mean?
• During synchronization all files are transferred. How do I make WinSCP transfer only changed files?
• Can I map an SFTP or SCP server as a network drive in Windows?
• Why can’t I change the owner and the group of a file?
• What is error code 4? (or some other error code)
• How do I transfer my settings to another computer? How do I import/export my settings?
• I cannot read the file panel font. How can I make the panel font bigger?
• What command-line parameters can be used with WinSCP?
• How to keep the user in a specified directory on the server? (chrooted session)
• Why does selecting a file in WinSCP not work as I expect (that is, in the normal MS Windows way)?
• Can the internal editor be better (e.g. syntax highlighting)?
• Only scp2 is allowed on our server. Is it possible to make WinSCP use it instead of scp1?