Month: August 2025

We are thrilled to announce Mountain Duck 5, the premier choice to mount server and cloud storage as a disk in Finder on macOS and the File Explorer on Windows. Version 5 is a solid major upgrade in development for several years with many new features and refinements, including a new Integrated Connect Mode, storage-independent file versioning support, and SMB connections.

New Features

Integrated Connect Mode

Mountain Duck 5 features a new Integrated connect mode using native APIs on Windows & macOS to integrate in the file explorer. No device driver installation or network mount required. The connect mode delivers significantly faster file write performance and file operations that match the speed of local disk operations, and a user experience similar to OneDrive on Windows or iCloud Drive on macOS but with any cloud storage provider of your choice.

Windows Search and Spotlight on macOS can be used to search for files on remote storage in Integrated connect mode.

See also the blog post Integrated Connect Mode for this feature.

SMB Support

As already available in Cyberduck, Mountain Duck 5 expands its protocol support with the addition of SMB (Server Message Block), enabling seamless connectivity to Windows file shares, Linux Samba, macOS File Sharing & Azure File Shares.

See also dedicated blog post SMB Protocol Support for this feature.

Activity Window

Track and cancel currently running sync operations in the new Activity panel available from the status bar (macOS) or tray (Windows) menu. It shows all running operations on files, pending sync tasks as well as any pending mount process.

Custom Versioning

The new Custom Versioning feature allows to safeguard and restore previous file versions. The previous version is stashed away before overwriting a file.

The option is available for all protocols with no support of file versioning such as FTP, SFTP or WebDAV ensuring your files are protected with version history regardless of the underlying storage protocol. File versions can be view and restored in the Info window.

See also the blog post Custom Versioning for this feature.

Pricing

Version 5 is the first paid upgrade after version 4 debuted in June 2020 with 17 free minor updates released since. Users with a license for version 4 receive an upgrade discount between 20% to 100%.

The new Integrated connect mode in Mountain Duck 5 synchronizes files and folders from a directory on the local disk with support from macOS and Windows.

While the Online and Smart Synchronization modes use device driver on Windows and NFS on macOS respectively to mount connections, the Integrated mode uses the tightly integrated File Provider (macOS) and Cloud Files (Windows) APIs to sync files from regular folder on the local disk like iCloud or OneDrive does. It allows faster writing and copy processes and access to cached content when offline.

Synchronization

The usage of dedicated operating system features for syncing make Mountain Duck 5 future proof. Like in Smart Synchronization connect mode, files are displayed as placeholders, cached on local disk and optionally selected to always keep offline.

The improved user experience includes familiar file management controls directly within Finder and Windows Explorer, allowing users to easily select files to keep offline, remove cached data, or exclude items from synchronization. Visual indicators provide instant feedback on synchronization status through additional icons displayed next to filenames. Real-time progress is shown during file transfers with progress bars over file icons and circular progress indicators, giving users complete visibility into upload and download operations.

Additional Context Menu Items

Additional context menu items in Windows Explorer and Finder.app on macOS provided by the system allow to download files or free up space for files already cached.

Spotlight

Windows Search and Spotlight on macOS can be used to search for files on remote storage in Integrated connect mode.

New Default

The Integrated connect mode is the default for new connections configured. Existing bookmarks retain the connect mode when an existing cache location is found.

With Mountain Duck 5, a new storage-independent versioning option is introduced for protocols with no support for file versioning such as FTP/SFTP, WebDAV, and OpenStack Swift. Safeguard against potential file loss with custom versioning. Stash changes to a file in a versioned folder on the server.

The custom versioning option can be enabled in the bookmark configuration or by default in Preferences → Versions tab.

Use the context menu Info → Versions to retrieve the file history where previous versions can be previewed, deleted or restored. Alternatively manage previous versions stored in the folder named .duckversions adjacent to the file.

More information on the settings can be found in the documentation.