How to use rclone.yazi??

[Yaman-Harfoush]

What system are you running Yazi on?

Linux Wayland

What terminal are you running Yazi in?

Alacritty 0.17.0

ya env output

Yazi
    Version: 26.9.1 (Arch Linux 2026-09-04)
    Debug  : false
    Triple : x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu (linux-x86_64)
    Rustc  : 1.98.1 (48a229ce 2026-09-01)
    Backtrace: None

Ya
    Version: 26.9.1 (Arch Linux 2026-09-04)
    Debug  : false
    Triple : x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu (linux-x86_64)
    Rustc  : 1.98.1 (48a229ce 2026-09-01)

Config
    Init             : /home/yaman/.config/yazi/init.lua (3026 chars)
    Yazi             : /home/yaman/.config/yazi/yazi.toml (9512 chars)
    Keymap           : /home/yaman/.config/yazi/keymap.toml (7490 chars)
    Theme            : /home/yaman/.config/yazi/theme.toml (No such file or directory (os error 2))
    VFS              : /home/yaman/.config/yazi/vfs.toml (11 chars)
    Package          : /home/yaman/.config/yazi/package.toml (979 chars)
    Dark/light flavor: ArcSwapAny("") / ArcSwapAny("")

Emulator
    TERM                : Some("alacritty")
    TERM_PROGRAM        : None
    TERM_PROGRAM_VERSION: None
    Brand.from_env      : None
    Emulator.probe      : Emulator { brand: Unknown, version: ArcSwapAny(""), csi_u: Some(0), kgp: false, kgp_shm: false, sixel: false, background: Some([9252, 10280, 15163]), color_scheme: None, csi_16t: (0, 0), force_16t: false, osc_5522: false, cursor_blink: false, cursor_shape: None, mux: None, probe: Probe { id: Id(0), completed: false }, started: false }

Adapter
    Drivers.matches: Wayland
    TERM.dimension : Dimension { cols: 105, rows: 24, width: 1890, height: 984 }

Desktop
    XDG_SESSION_TYPE           : Some("wayland")
    WAYLAND_DISPLAY            : Some("wayland-1")
    DISPLAY                    : Some(":1")
    NIRI_SOCKET                : None
    SWAYSOCK                   : Some("/run/user/1000/sway-ipc.1000.612.sock")
    HYPRLAND_INSTANCE_SIGNATURE: None
    WAYFIRE_SOCKET             : None

SSH
    shared.in_ssh_connection: false

WSL
    WSL: false

Variables
    SHELL              : Some("/bin/zsh")
    EDITOR             : None
    VISUAL             : None
    YAZI_FILE_ONE      : None
    YAZI_CONFIG_HOME   : None
    YAZI_ZOXIDE_OPTS   : None
    SSH_AUTH_SOCK      : None
    FZF_DEFAULT_OPTS   : None
    FZF_DEFAULT_COMMAND: None

Text Opener
    default     : Some(OpenerRuleArc(OpenerRule { id: Id(26), run: "nvim %s", block: true, orphan: false, desc: "$EDITOR", for: Unix, spread: true }))
    block-create: Some(OpenerRuleArc(OpenerRule { id: Id(26), run: "nvim %s", block: true, orphan: false, desc: "$EDITOR", for: Unix, spread: true }))
    block-rename: Some(OpenerRuleArc(OpenerRule { id: Id(26), run: "nvim %s", block: true, orphan: false, desc: "$EDITOR", for: Unix, spread: true }))

Multiplexers
    tmux version       : 3.8
    tmux build flags   : enable-sixel=Supported
    ZELLIJ_SESSION_NAME: None
    Zellij version     : No such file or directory (os error 2)

Dependencies
    file          : 5.48
    ueberzugpp    : 2.9.11
    ffmpeg/ffprobe: 9.0.2 / 9.0.2
    pdftoppm      : 26.08.0
    magick        : 7.1.2-34
    fzf           : 0.74.5
    fd/fdfind     : 10.5.0 / No such file or directory (os error 2)
    rg            : 15.2.0
    chafa         : 1.18.3
    zoxide        : 0.10.0
    7zz/7z        : No such file or directory (os error 2) / 26.04
    resvg         : 0.48.1
    jq            : 1.8.2

Clipboard
    wl-copy/paste: 2.3.0 / 2.3.0
    xclip        : 0.13
    xsel         : No such file or directory (os error 2)

Routine
    `file -bL --mime-type`: text/plain

Describe the question

I want to use rclone.yazi to transfer files to and from my phone using FTP. How can I do that??
Could you please tell the maintainers to make the plugin as intuitive as gvfs.yazi??

Thank you!

Anything else?

No response

Checklist

• I have read all the documentation
• I have searched the existing discussions/issues

[vectornguyen76]

rclone.yazi doesn't use your rclone remotes or a UI. You describe the remote in ~/.config/yazi/vfs.toml (yours is basically empty right now), then open it as a rclone:// URL.

1. Start an FTP server on the phone (any FTP server app) and note its IP, port, user and password.

2. Install rclone and the plugin

ya pkg add yazi-rs/plugins:rclone

Note the README says the plugin is experimental and needs Yazi nightly. You're on 26.9.1 stable, so if it errors out, try a nightly build.

3. Add the phone to vfs.toml. Every backend.* key is passed to rclone's FTP backend options:

[rclone.phone]
kind         = "scope"
run          = "rclone"
root         = "/"
backend.type = "ftp"
backend.host = "192.168.1.50"   # phone IP
backend.port = 2121             # port shown by the FTP app
backend.user = "android"
backend.pass = "PASTE_OUTPUT_OF_rclone_obscure"

rclone expects the FTP password obscured, so generate it with rclone obscure 'your-password' and paste the output. If the server allows anonymous login, use backend.user = "anonymous".

4. Open it

yazi rclone://phone

To copy files, open a second tab (t) on a local folder and yank/paste between the tabs as usual.

Tip: if it doesn't connect, test the same settings with plain rclone first. That shows the real error:

rclone lsd ":ftp,host=192.168.1.50,port=2121,user=android,pass=$(rclone obscure 'your-password'):"

[Yaman-Harfoush]

Hi,

I have tried to run it on Windows, since I use gvfs for Linux and I couldn't get it to work. Presumably because I'm not using yazi nightly version.
Setting up each connection manually is a hassle. If in the future you could provide a UI, that could be the next level for yazi as the original requestors noted.

I have another question:
gvfs works fine for yazi except for a little complaint. I added the proposed lines in the gvfs.yazi repository to my yazi.toml despite not being sure what they do. Even so, yazi calls mime.fetch, which AI told me it calls "file" to determine the type of each file in the directories I traverse into, which takes a long time.

I have 2 solutions in mind. Please provide better ones if you have, since you are the pro here!

1. use mime-ext.yazi as AI suggested. It could provide better performance, but I don't have any idea about it. Can I configure yazi to use it only for external mounted drives??

2. since I only want to move files without viewing them, Can I turn it off for externally mounted drives??

What do you think?
Thank you!

[vectornguyen76]

Glad it helped! On the UI: agreed, a remote picker would be nice. That's worth a feature request in sxyazi/yazi.

About the slow mime.fetch: the lines from the gvfs.yazi README only turn off preloaders and previewers for mounted paths. MIME detection is a separate step (a fetcher), and by default Yazi runs mime.local for every local://* file, which calls file(1). On a gvfs/MTP mount that means reading every file over the slow connection, so it's slow.

Your option 1 is the better one, and yes, you can limit it to mounted drives. Install the plugin:

ya pkg add yazi-rs/plugins:mime-ext

Then don't add require("mime-ext"):setup() to init.lua (that would switch it on everywhere). Instead, add this to yazi.toml:

[plugin]
prepend_fetchers = [
  # Guess MIME type from the file extension on gvfs mounts and removable drives
  { url = "/run/user/*/gvfs/**/*", run = "mime-ext.local", prio = "high", group = "mime" },
  { url = "/run/media/*/**/*",     run = "mime-ext.local", prio = "high", group = "mime" },
]

Since these are prepended and use the same group = "mime" as the built-in fetchers in yazi-default.toml, they take precedence over mime.local for those paths. Everywhere else still uses file(1). If you merge this into your existing [plugin] section, keep the prepend_preloaders / prepend_previewers entries you already have.

About option 2: you can't really switch MIME detection off. Yazi needs a MIME type to pick openers, icons and colors. mime-ext is effectively the "off" switch: it never opens the files, it just looks at the extension. The trade-off is that files without a known extension may show up as a generic type, which doesn't matter if you're only moving files.

[Yaman-Harfoush]

Wow, That is blazing fast! I don't need to touch a GUI file manager again! I will request the rclone UI feature as well .
Thank you, you are fast and accurate. I really appreciate it!