The workshop · Edition No. 36 · 30 Sep 2026

rclone/rclone

A command-line program that copies, syncs and verifies files across more than seventy kinds of cloud storage.

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60025 stars · MIT — read from /blob/master/COPYING, plain unmodified text, 'Copyright (C) 2012 by Nick Craig-Wood'; all four conventional LICENSE paths 404 · v1.75.1 of 2026-09-04, the yearless GitHub date confirmed by pkg.go.dev; ungh's releases endpoint was a full patch behind at v1.75.0 of 2026-07-31 · Track this in Scout

A command-line program that copies, syncs and verifies files across more than seventy kinds of cloud storage.

▶Repo detailsthe review · specs · pros & cons · install

What it is

A single downloaded program, first published in March 2014 and at 60,025 stars, that presents every storage service through the same set of commands. It checks copied files by comparing a fingerprint of the contents, keeps the original modification times, and can also mount remote storage so it looks like an ordinary folder.

What it is good for. Anyone whose files are spread across several storage services and who wants one repeatable command instead of several web pages. It is also the usual answer when a backup has to land somewhere off the machine that made it, and when the same copy has to be verified rather than assumed.

Stars60025
LicenceMIT — read from /blob/master/COPYING, plain unmodified text, 'Copyright (C) 2012 by Nick Craig-Wood'; all four conventional LICENSE paths 404
Latestv1.75.1 of 2026-09-04, the yearless GitHub date confirmed by pkg.go.dev; ungh's releases endpoint was a full patch behind at v1.75.0 of 2026-07-31
Good
  • Its own website states that over seventy cloud storage products are supported, including the big object stores and ordinary transfer protocols such as SFTP and WebDAV.
  • Every transfer is verified with a content fingerprint, so a file that arrived damaged is reported rather than trusted.
  • It is genuinely active: version 1.75.1 was published on 4 September 2026, and new code landed on the morning this edition was written.
Watch for
  • The sync command is destructive on purpose. Its documented job is to make the destination identical to the source, which means files that exist only at the destination are deleted. The documentation recommends running with --dry-run first and with --interactive while learning, and that advice is not optional.
  • Its optional encryption hides less than people assume. The file length is not hidden and can be worked out to within sixteen bytes, modification times are not hidden because they are needed for syncing, and the folder structure stays visible under the standard setting. The password cannot be changed afterwards: the project states plainly that the key of already encrypted content cannot be changed, so a leaked password means uploading everything again.
  • It is a large project with a large backlog: 980 open issues and 260 open pull requests. Building from source needs Go version 1.26 or newer, and the published documentation carries several security advisories, so staying on a current version matters.
Similar repositories
  • peak/s5cmd

    Moves files to and from object storage very quickly with many parallel connections, but it speaks to one kind of object store and local disks only, with no other services, no encryption and no folder mounting.

    Track this in Scout
  • s3fs-fuse/s3fs-fuse

    Makes one object-storage bucket look like an ordinary folder on Linux, macOS and FreeBSD, which is only the mounting part, with no copy engine and no verified transfers.

    Track this in Scout
  • kahing/goofys

    Mounts object storage as a folder faster than s3fs-fuse but does only that, and it has taken no new code since 18 July 2024.

    Track this in Scout
Install
sudo -v ; curl https://rclone.org/install.sh | sudo bash
Screenshots
rclone/rclone: GitHub preview card

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