Owlfiles ships with a built-in command line interface. List, search, copy, move and delete files across every Owlfiles connection — local disk, SMB, FTP, SFTP, WebDAV, NFS, and clouds like Google Drive, OneDrive and Dropbox — straight from Terminal.
The CLI is the Owlfiles application binary itself — it reuses the connections and saved logins you already set up in the app, so there is nothing extra to configure.
Run it from Terminal using its full path:
To save typing, add a shell alias. For the default zsh shell, add this to ~/.zshrc, then open a new Terminal window:
After that, you can simply type owlfiles — the examples below assume this alias.
Most commands take an address in the form <connection>:<path>, where connection is the name shown by owlfiles connections.
MyNAS:/Documents/report.pdf — a file on the connection named “MyNAS”.GDrive:1zeRs1TUOYxMwVdYJdHF_ikAaRCMYMcwp — Google Drive uses ID as path.local:~/Desktop or ~/Desktop — files on your Mac. If no connection is specified, the path is treated as a local disk path.If a connection name contains a space, wrap the whole address in quotes, e.g. "my NAS:/Documents". For cloud services you may use a file's ID in place of its path (the ID is shown in the results of ls command).
Each command returns exit status 0 on success and a non-zero status on failure, with errors on standard error — so the CLI works well inside shell scripts.
A few notes to keep things running smoothly.
Run owlfiles connections to see exact names, and quote any name with a space. If a connection asks you to sign in, open it once in the Owlfiles app — the CLI reuses the same saved login afterwards.
Owlfiles runs in the macOS App Sandbox. The CLI can reach a folder on your local disk only after you have opened it once in the Owlfiles app. Files on your remote and cloud connections are not affected.
Add the owlfiles alias and run owlfiles connections to begin. The full step-by-step guide is in the user guide.