Docs / Obsidian Remote / During a session

Transferring files

The file manager copies files and folders between your PC and the remote PC, in both directions, end-to-end encrypted.

Open the file manager

• During a remote-control session, click Transfer files on the toolbar.
• Or, to move files without seeing the screen at all, use the Transfer files button under the box in the main window. The file manager opens on its own once you are signed in to the remote PC.

The remote PC must allow Files for your session. View-only sessions can't transfer files.

The two panes

The window has two panes:

• This PC, on the left, starts in your user folder.
• The remote PC, on the right, named after it, starts at its Drives.

Each pane has a path you can click to go back up, and buttons for Up one folder, Home folder (on the remote side, Drives), Refresh, New folder, Rename and Delete. Deleting a folder deletes everything in it, so the app asks first.

Copy files

• Select files or folders and click the arrow: Send the selected files to the remote PC or Receive the selected remote files here. They go into the folder open in the other pane.
• Or drag them from one pane to the other.
• Or drag files from Windows Explorer onto the remote pane.
• Or drag files or folders from the remote pane out to Windows Explorer, the desktop or another app. They are fetched when you let go (the transfer shows in the strip), so the drop finishes once they have arrived.

The Transfers strip at the bottom shows each transfer with its progress and speed; the X on a transfer cancels it. When it finishes it says Done and the size.

For large files, Receive is the better choice: a drag out to Explorer waits until everything has arrived, and the files pass through a temporary folder first.

When a file already exists

If a file with the same name is already there, a question appears above the transfers:

• Replace overwrites it.
• Skip leaves the existing file and moves on.
• Keep both copies yours under a new name.
• Cancel stops the transfer.

Interrupted transfers

If a download from the remote PC is interrupted (the connection drops, or you cancel), transfer the same files again: the app picks up where it stopped instead of starting over.

Whose files you see

On an installed remote PC, files are read and written as the person signed in at that PC: you see exactly the files they can see, and nothing more. If nobody is signed in there (the PC is at its sign-in screen), file transfer isn't available: sign in to Windows on the remote PC first, through the session.

The person at the remote PC can take away Files at any moment in their connection manager. Any transfer under way stops at once.