Rclone tutorial

Rclone is a command-line tool for syncing files between your local computer and remote storage. It supports SFTP, so it works directly with your Pulsed Media seedbox (sometimes misspelled as sedbox) — no special configuration on the server side.

Rclone can do three things that basic SFTP clients cannot:

• Sync directories (like rsync, but with a simpler interface)
• Mount remote storage as a local drive (browse seedbox files in your file manager)
• Automate transfers on a schedule

Installation

Linux (Debian/Ubuntu)

sudo apt install rclone

macOS

brew install rclone

Windows

Download from rclone.org/downloads. Extract the zip and add the folder to your PATH, or use the installer.

Setting up your seedbox remote

Run the interactive configuration:

rclone config

When prompted:

1. Choose n (new remote)
2. Name: seedbox
3. Type: sftp
4. Host: servername.pulsedmedia.com
5. User: your seedbox username
6. Port: 22
7. Password: enter your seedbox password when prompted
8. Accept defaults for the remaining options
9. Save and quit

Test the connection:

rclone lsd seedbox:/home/username/

You should see your seedbox directories (data, session, www).

Copying files

Copy downloads from seedbox to your local machine:

# Copy entire data directory
rclone copy seedbox:/home/username/data/ ~/seedbox/data/ --progress

# Copy a specific folder
rclone copy seedbox:/home/username/data/some-torrent/ ~/Downloads/some-torrent/ --progress

rclone copy skips files that already exist at the destination (same size and modification time). It does not delete anything.

Syncing directories

rclone sync makes the destination match the source exactly. Files deleted from the source are deleted from the destination.

# Sync seedbox data to local (WARNING: deletes local files not on seedbox)
rclone sync seedbox:/home/username/data/ ~/seedbox/data/ --progress

# Dry run first (shows what would happen without doing it)
rclone sync seedbox:/home/username/data/ ~/seedbox/data/ --dry-run

Use --dry-run first to verify before running a real sync. If you do not want local files deleted, use rclone copy instead.

Mounting as a local drive

Rclone can mount your seedbox as a folder on your local machine. Files appear in your file manager and can be opened directly — useful for playing media with VLC or Jellyfin without downloading entire files first.

Linux

# Install FUSE if not already present
sudo apt install fuse

# Create mount point
mkdir -p ~/mnt/seedbox

# Mount (runs in foreground — add & to background it)
rclone mount seedbox:/home/username/data/ ~/mnt/seedbox/ --vfs-cache-mode full

# Unmount
fusermount -uz ~/mnt/seedbox

macOS

Requires macFUSE:

brew install macfuse
mkdir -p ~/mnt/seedbox
rclone mount seedbox:/home/username/data/ ~/mnt/seedbox/ --vfs-cache-mode full

Windows

Requires WinFsp. After installing WinFsp:

rclone mount seedbox:/home/username/data/ X: --vfs-cache-mode full

This mounts the seedbox as drive X: in File Explorer.

Cache modes

The --vfs-cache-mode flag controls how rclone caches files locally:

Mode	Behavior	Use case
off	No caching. Files are read directly from the remote.	Listing files, quick checks
minimal	Cache only what is needed for reads	Browsing, small files
writes	Cache reads and writes	When writing files to mount
full	Cache everything	Media playback, heavy use (recommended)

With full caching, rclone downloads files to a local cache directory as they are accessed. Subsequent access to the same file is served from cache.

Filtering files

Include or exclude files by pattern:

# Copy only video files
rclone copy seedbox:/home/username/data/ ~/videos/ --include "*.mkv" --include "*.mp4" --progress

# Exclude temporary files
rclone sync seedbox:/home/username/data/ ~/seedbox/ --exclude "*.part" --exclude "*.tmp"

Performance tuning

# Transfer 8 files in parallel (default is 4)
rclone copy seedbox:/home/username/data/ ~/seedbox/ --transfers 8 --progress

# Limit bandwidth to 50 Mbps
rclone copy seedbox:/home/username/data/ ~/seedbox/ --bwlimit 50M --progress

The --transfers flag controls how many files are transferred simultaneously. Higher values use more bandwidth. If your connection can handle it, increasing from 4 to 8 or 16 can speed up transfers of many small files.

Automating transfers

To sync your seedbox data automatically on a schedule, create a small shell script:

#!/bin/bash
# seedbox-sync.sh — run via cron or systemd timer
rclone copy seedbox:/home/username/data/ ~/seedbox/data/ --log-file ~/rclone.log

Then add it to your crontab to run hourly (or at whatever interval you prefer). See your operating system's cron documentation for the syntax.

For automated transfers to work without a password prompt, set up the rclone remote with an SSH key or store the password in the rclone configuration (which rclone encrypts by default).

See also

• Tiered media storage with rclone and mergerfs — use a storage box as cheap backing for your seedbox: cache it for streaming, or build a tiered hot/cold library.

• Rclone: mount seedbox via SFTP — detailed mount guide
• Downloading from seedbox — all download methods compared
• Seedbox access via FTP, SSH and SFTP — connection setup
• Seedbox — overview of seedbox plans