Accessing a Storage Box via WebDAV on macOS

Introduction

How to browse, upload, and download files on a Storage Box from a Mac, using two free and open-source tools:

• Cyberduck - with a GUI
• rclone - with the terminal (for scripting etc)

Both use WebDAV, supported by Storage Box already (must be enabled).

Cyberduck doesn't give you a drive that shows up in Finder the way a local disk does by default. rclone does with caveats. The last section covers the rclone way.

Prerequisites

• A Hetzner Storage Box. This was tested on a BX11; should work with any Storage Box.
• A Mac (tested on macOS 26).
• Homebrew, (if you plan to use rclone. Not needed for Cyberduck).

Step 1 - Enable WebDAV Access

1. Open the Hetzner Console and go to Storage Boxes on the left, click Create Storage Box and follow the steps or if you already have one then select the existing box.
2. On the Overview tab, check that WebDAV Support is on and turn it on if not.
3. Also turn on External Reachability (separate setting near WebDAV Support). Without this obviously you won't be able to reach the machine unless you're already on the Hetzner network, which I assume you're not. So later if Cyberduck or rclone can't connect then double check this External Reachability setting.

Once both are on, your connection details are on the same page:

• Server: u######.your-storagebox.de
• Username: u######
• Password: the one you set when the Storage Box was created (or reset it from the same Console page)

(Replace u###### with your own Storage Box username in every command below.)

Step 2 - Connect with Cyberduck (GUI, easiest)

1. Download Cyberduck from cyberduck.io/download and move Cyberduck.app to your Applications folder.
2. Open Cyberduck. The first time it launches, macOS might ask "Allow Cyberduck to find devices on local networks?"; click Allow (or Don't Allow, it isn't needed for the steps below).
3. Click Open Connection in the toolbar (or press ⌘O).
4. In the protocol dropdown at the top of the dialog, choose WebDAV (HTTPS).
5. Fill in:
   • Server: u######.your-storagebox.de
   • Port: 443
   • Username: u######
   • Password: your Storage Box password
6. Add to Keychain is checked by default, so the password saves to your macOS Keychain automatically; uncheck it first if you don't want that.
7. Click Save (to save the connection for later, easier) then double click the saved connection. Otherwise just Connect for a one-time connection and you'll have to retype everything every time.

Cyberduck opens a browser window showing your Storage Box's contents. Drag files in from Finder to upload, or out to download, same as a folder.

Step 3 - Connect with rclone (Terminal)

Step 3.1 - Install rclone

brew install rclone

Step 3.2 - Configure the remote

Run rclone's interactive configuration wizard:

rclone config

Instructions for each prompt are below but note that two of the prompts, url and vendor, both accept any text with no validation, and the wizard never checks whether an answer fits the field it ended up in. So if you're copy/pasting that could potentially mess things up. eg if a URL gets pasted into the "vendor" prompt then everything will look fine until you try to use the connection and then it just won't work and figuring out why will be a pain. If that happens use rclone config show storagebox and check all the settings.

Here are the prompt responses:

If you want to script/automate that for some reason, see rclone's docs on config create and obscure for scripting this setup instead. FYI, if scripting then consider piping your password in using obscure instead of exposing it plain text on the Terminal.

Step 3.3 - Use it

Check the exact remote name you created:

rclone listremotes

This should print storagebox:, with the trailing colon. rclone needs the colon to tell a remote apart from a local folder of the same name, so rclone lsd storagebox (no colon) fails with "directory not found" instead of connecting. Use exactly what this command prints in place of storagebox: below; if it prints something else, or nothing, redo the previous step.

List directories on your Storage Box:

rclone lsd storagebox:

List files on your Storage Box:

rclone lsf storagebox:

Copy a local folder up to the Storage Box:

rclone copy ~/Documents/some-folder storagebox:some-folder

This copies the contents of some-folder into the remote some-folder, it won't nest another folder inside it.

If you want the remote folder to end up exactly matching the local one, including deleting anything on the remote that isn't in the local folder, rclone sync does that, but it's a one-way, destructive operation, not a merge or a two-way sync. Always check what it would do first:

rclone sync --dry-run ~/Documents/some-folder storagebox:some-folder

If the output looks correct, drop --dry-run and rerun it.

If everything works then you're done. If you have listed remotes but they don't work you can verify the settings with:

rclone config show storagebox

Step 4 - Mounting a Drive in Finder (with rclone)

If you want your Storage Box to show up as an actual Finder-mounted drive, the Homebrew build of rclone can do that. rclone still says it's experimental but it worked for me:

mkdir -p ~/storagebox
rclone nfsmount storagebox: ~/storagebox --vfs-cache-mode=writes

That has to stay open and running for the mount to continue working. Use Ctrl-C to stop it. For a read-only mount leave off --vfs-cache-mode=writes. To run it in the background instead, add --daemon, and unmount later with umount ~/storagebox.

rclone also has a separate FUSE-based mount command, but the Homebrew build doesn't support it. So you'd have to install rclone a different way and use macFUSE or FUSE-T. rclone's own mount documentation explains both.

Conclusion

You should now be able to manage your Storage Box from a Mac.

Next steps:

• rclone WebDAV documentation
• Cyberduck documentation
• Hetzner Storage Box WebDAV access (Windows/Linux/Android)

License: MIT