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Transfer Settings

On several occasions you need or have chance to configure transfer settings. This includes:

Setting default transfer settings.
Setting transfer settings presets.
Uploading/downloading files.
Configuring custom settings for functions Synchronize and Keep remote directory up to date.

Dialogs associated with the above operations will include box similar to the one below. Note that the picture shows all possible options that may not be always available.

Transfer Mode
Filename Modification
Attributes
Other Options

Transfer Mode

Use box Transfer mode to select preferred transfer mode. If you select Automatic mode, you should update the text file mask in Transfer following files in text mode.

Filename Modification

Use selector to choose a way how to convert filename case when transferring files. This is particularly useful when transferring files between platform with case-sensitive file-system (like Unix) and platform with case-insensitive file-system (like Windows or Mac). Special option Lower case 8.3 is useful for uploads only. With it only files whose filename follows legacy MS-DOS format (8-letter name and 3-letter extension, all letters uppercase) are converted to lower case.

The Replace ‘\:*?’ checkbox enables automatic modification of filenames to match Windows requirements.

On download, WinSCP:

Replaces characters that are not allowed in Windows filenames (/\:*?\“<>|) with %XX, where XX is hexadecimal representation of character ASCII code.
Replaces trailing space with %20.

On upload, WinSCP reverses the modifications to restore original filename.

As percent sign (%) has special meaning when the replacing is enabled, the sign itself has to be replaced, although it is allowed in Windows filenames. If you want to prevent that you need to turn the replacing off.

Attributes

Upload Options

The Set permissions checkbox enables you to specify permissions to be set for the uploaded files. When unchecked the newly uploaded files will have default permissions1, which is platform-dependent, and the overwritten files usually preserve their previous permissions, but this can also vary with the platform. Setting permissions is not available if the server does not support UNIX-style permissions.

To specify the permissions, you can type them directly into the box below. Use either octal format or rwxrwxrwx form. To enable feature Add X to directories add +x at the end. If you do not want to type permissions directly, use ellipsis button (…) to reveal permissions popup box, or use context menu to choose from typical permissions.

Note that while you may have rights to overwrite the remote file, you may not have rights to change its attributes (permissions and timestamps). If you upload set of files, where for some you do not have the rights, you may want to check Ignore permission errors to avoid being prompted with error message for each of them.

Download Options

The Preserve read-only checkbox makes WinSCP to set ”read-only“ attribute to downloaded files that do not have user-write permission set. The option is not available if the server does not support UNIX-style permissions.

Common Options

The Preserve timestamp checkbox makes WinSCP preserve the last modification timestamp of the transferred file. Note that there are several factors that can affect timestamp recalculation between local and remote filesystem.

Note that while you may have rights to overwrite the remote file, you may not have rights to change its timestamp. See Ignore permissions errors. With FTP protocol, preserving timestamp of uploaded files may not be supported.

The Calculate total size checkbox make WinSCP calculate total size of all files to be transferred before the actual transfer. It allows it then to estimate time necessary to complete the transfer. Note that if you are going to transfer large number of files the calculation can take significant time.

Other Options

In the Exclude/Include mask you can specify file mask to exclude certain files/directories (or file types) from the transfer. When Exclude option is selected, the files/directories matching mask will be excluded from transfer. When Include option is selected, only the files/directories matching mask will be transferred. Leave mask empty to transfer all files/directories. The option also excludes files from synchronization and makes them be ignored by function Keep remote directory up to date.

The Clear source file ‘Archive’ attribute checkbox makes WinSCP unset the ”archive" attribute of source files once the upload finishes. The option is not available for downloads.