I’ve tried ExpanDrive for opening remote project files directly from my editor, but reconnecting after my laptop wakes has been interrupting my work. I only need the folder I’m currently working on, so keeping a local copy would be manageable, though I’d prefer not to change how I browse files.
For that situation, do you actually use another drive-mounting tool or a sync client with a local working folder, and why did you choose that approach?
I compared them by moving my existing connections over, rather than treating a list of supported services as the whole answer. That meant re-entering credentials and checking whether I could keep working with the storage I already used. Not much of a spectacle, admittedly, but I wanted a replacement that fit my day-to-day use, not another reason to spend an afternoon comparing product descriptions.
I ended up switching to CloudMounter. Getting my connections moved over took about 10 minutes, most of which went toward entering credentials again. That was the migration in my case, not a promise about how long it will take anyone else.
The useful part was that I didn’t lose any of my existing connections in the move. CloudMounter supports SFTP, FTP, WebDAV, S3, Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, and Box. I’m listing those because connection support is an actual requirement, unlike the general air of superiority that tends to surround software recommendations.
I’ve stayed with it since switching. That’s my experience, though, not evidence that everyone using something else needs to pack up immediately. My setup carried over, and I preferred using the replacement. I don’t need to turn that into a grand verdict.
The underlying idea is straightforward: remote storage shows up as a drive on your computer. Instead of opening a separate FTP-style client, you browse the server or cloud account through Finder or Explorer, much like another folder.
That’s what ExpanDrive does with storage such as SFTP, S3, Google Drive, and OneDrive. If you want background on the application rather than my preference, there’s a ExpanDrive.
Most alternatives under consideration do that same basic job. So I wouldn’t treat “mounts cloud storage as a drive” as the deciding argument. That gets a program into the comparison; it doesn’t settle the comparison. For me, the distinction came down to what I wanted to keep using once my connections were in place.
CloudMounter lets you try it before paying. I’d start with one connection you actually use rather than move everything just because somebody on a forum sounds unusually certain.
That gives you a way to judge whether it fits without making the entire switch first. My quick migration is useful context, but your own experience matters more than my stopwatch. I’m satisfied with where I landed; I’m also mildly tired of personal preferences being presented as universal findings.
For anyone who has compared these tools, what made you keep one over the other once basic connection support was covered?
Matching your connections doesn’t tell me much about the fact that the wake-from-sleep issue has been resolved. I would still consider CloudMounter, but I would want to check whether a real editor save after waking would actually reach the remote file (or make the drive appear).
Mounting only the project folder doesn’t mean your editor will only access the file you’re typing in. Project-wide search, indexing, Git integration, and build tools can all touch other files. That’s a different workload from browsing a drive and opening a document.
@binaryrouter’s migration experience answers the compatibility question, but I’d put more weight on what happens once the project is open. Whether you go with CloudMounter or another mounted-drive option, the editor needs to be part of the comparison. A folder that’s pleasant to browse could still be frustrating when you search the whole project or switch branches.
I’d use a small, disposable project with the same structure as your actual work. Beyond the wake-and-save check, try renaming a directory, searching across files, and running whatever normally happens when you save. If your editor excludes generated files and dependency folders from indexing, keep those exclusions in place. You want to compare your actual workflow, not accidentally benchmark every file you’ve ever downloaded.
There’s a separate option if keeping just the active project locally is acceptable: work on that local folder and make transferring changes a deliberate step. I wouldn’t use automatic two-way syncing without deciding what should happen when both copies change. Trading reconnect trouble for uncertainty about which copy is authoritative isn’t much of an improvement.
For occasional edits, I’d lean toward the mounted-folder approach. For a project that needs searches, builds, and lots of file operations throughout the day, I’d rather keep the active working copy local. That doesn’t require mirroring the rest of the remote storage, and it keeps a dropped connection from interrupting the editing itself.
Don’t mistake the absence of local project copy with the absence of local disk usage. CloudMounter wins my vote because of the adjustable cache lifetime on your Mac. By the way, it allows you to control how long the program keeps copies of cached files instead of having to manage this yourself.
Test file permissions, too.
Start with a disposable file in a folder set up like your actual project. Before opening it through a candidate replacement, check its owner and permissions on the remote side. Use a file that another collaborator or your normal build process needs to access, if that applies to your setup.
Next, change it in your editor and save through the mounted drive. Check the remote file’s contents, owner, and permissions again, then try accessing it as that other user or process. You’re looking for a save that updates the text without unexpectedly changing who can use the file.
I’d put that ahead of cache lifetime, @golden_bit. Cache controls wouldn’t decide my choice if routine saves meant fixing access afterward. If anything changes, check the editor’s save settings as well as the mounting app before ruling either one out.
The wake-from-sleep thing everyone keeps circling back to is really a question about how the mount handles a dead socket, not whether the drive shows up in Finder. When your laptop sleeps, the TCP connection to the server is gone. What matters is whether the mount silently re-establishes it on the next file operation or whether your editor sits there spinning while the write stalls. So when you run @0xhacker6’s save-after-wake check, don’t just do it once from a clean state. Sleep the machine, wait past whatever idle timeout your server has, then trigger a save through the editor’s autosave rather than a manual one. Autosave firing into a half-dead mount is where I’ve seen editors hang hardest.
@retroloop_77 is right that indexing and Git make this worse, and I’d go further: the reconnect delay is exactly when a project-wide search or a branch switch will fire dozens of reads at once. If the mount is still renegotiating, some of those return errors instead of waiting, and your editor may quietly show stale or missing files. That’s the failure mode I’d actually worry about, not the folder being unpleasant to browse.
The software I would choose in this case is the CloudMounter because of the possibility to define it as mounted at the user’s login. I would not say that such mount tools could totally resolve the issue if the workflow implies the heavy usage of the remote machine per day. If it is applicable in the given situation, the working copy should be placed locally on your computer to avoid any problems with the connection and immediately pushed to the remote machine. In case of a temporary disconnection, the software would require remounting the previously connected drive. On the other hand, it seems like not a frequent task to search and build the project every day.
Reconnecting to a project only you edit is different from reconnecting to one a teammate may have changed while your laptop slept. For an ExpanDrive replacement, I’d test the editor-and-mount combination with an unsaved buffer: change that same file remotely during sleep, then wake the laptop and see whether saving gives you a conflict warning. I’d care more about catching that stale overwrite than mounting automatically at login.
Do not trust that a message from an editor saying something along the lines of ‘saved’ means it is safe to close the laptop. As a new user, I would be confused if there was an option to replace it, but I would have no idea if my changes had already been uploaded to the server or if they sat waiting to be uploaded. I would much rather see an upload queue and a message saying something went wrong than have to open the remote file to check what has changed.