Enable built-in FTP server in Mac OS X Yosemite / El Capitan / Sierra

Open up a Terminal and paste in the following commands to enable or disable the built-in FTP server.

To turn on the FTP server, paste this into the command prompt:

sudo -s launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/ftp.plist

To turn off the FTP server, issue the following command:

sudo -s launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/ftp.plist

Now you can access your Mac via FTP using a command like this from another computer on the network:

ftp://user@your_mac_ip
ftp://user@your_mac_hostname


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