Managing Sessions

Once you have opened your first session and the main window shows up, you can open additional sessions using Session > New Session or the corresponding toolbar button or keyboard shortcut. The Login dialog will show. There you can choose some of your sites or enter the login details manually. To directly open a site, go to Session > Sites.

The newly opened session will become active.

You can use WinSCP jump list to reopen recent sessions too.

Once you have several sessions opened you can switch among them. Use session tabs for that. Or just go to Session > Opened Sessions or keyboard shortcuts.

By default each opened session remembers its own panel state, including focused file and panel sorting. In Commander interface the local panel remembers also the last used local directory for each session. This behavior can be turned off for both panels, or for local panel only.

To close connection, while keeping the WinSCP opened, go to Session > Disconnect.

Another easy way to close a session (and even a non-active session) is using the X button on a session tab. This feature is available only in the latest beta release.

When you disconnect the last opened session, the Login dialog will automatically show. You can to use it to open another session. If you close it without opening any, WinSCP will by default close completely. You can change that using preference option Keep main window open when the last session is closed.

You can also have session disconnected automatically once an operation finishes.

If you have opened ad hoc session, but then you decide that you want it in site list, you can use command Session > Save Session as Site.

Even if the site you are connected to is already stored in the site list, you can use the command to change the site’s initial state (such as directories, synchronized browsing state and session color) to current ones.

Particularly when you have multiple sessions opened to the same site, you may want to distinguish them by giving individual sessions a unique name. To rename the current session, go to Session > Rename Session.

An opened session name is preserved in a workspace.

This feature is available only in the latest beta release.

Keyboard shortcuts for session management are the same for both interfaces.

If you like, you can associate color with each session. The color will influence file panels, session tab, site item in site list and well as initial color of associated internal editors. You can associate the color with site on Advanced Site Settings dialog. To change color of already opened session go to View > Color in Explorer interface or Options > Color in Commander interface.

You can save all our opened sessions into workspace and restore them later.