Mount SFTP as a Drive on Windows 11: Four Ways

What Windows 11 ships, and what it does not

Checked 24 September 2026 against Microsoft's own documentation. Windows 11 can talk to an SFTP server from a command prompt. Microsoft's OpenSSH overview lists the commands built into the Windows feature — ssh, sshd, ssh-keygen, ssh-agent, ssh-add, ssh-keyscan, sftp and scp — so sftp user@host is a first-party way to move files.

What Windows 11 has no way to do is turn that server into a drive letter. There is no SFTP option in Map network drive, no sftp:// form the shell understands, no redirector for it. That gap is this page. The cross-platform version of the problem lives on mount SFTP as a network drive; everything below is Windows 11 specifically.

Check the OpenSSH client before anything else

Do not assume it is there. Microsoft's install-state table says that for "Windows 10 build 1809 +" SSH is "Not installed, install and enable using optional features" — only Windows Server 2025 is listed as "Installed but not enabled". Check, then install just the client; you do not need the server to connect outwards.

Get-WindowsCapability -Online | Where-Object Name -like 'OpenSSH*'
Add-WindowsCapability -Online -Name OpenSSH.Client~~~~0.0.1.0

A machine with neither component returns State : NotPresent for OpenSSH.Client~~~~0.0.1.0. The graphical equivalent is Start, *Optional Features*, View features, OpenSSH Client, Add.

Keys live where they do on Linux: ssh-keygen -t ecdsa offers to save to C:\Users\username/.ssh/id_ecdsa, the exact mixed-separator prompt Microsoft's documentation shows. The agent is off on a fresh machine:

Get-Service ssh-agent | Set-Service -StartupType Automatic
Start-Service ssh-agent
ssh-add $env:USERPROFILE\.ssh\id_ecdsa

Get ssh user@host working first: every route below authenticates the same way, so a key problem here is a key problem there. If you are already staring at one, SFTP permission denied (publickey) is the page for it.

Why `net use` cannot map SFTP by itself

Worth stating precisely, because the internet is full of net use recipes that cannot work. Microsoft's reference defines the command as one that "Connects a computer to or disconnects a computer from a shared resource", the local name as "disk drives (that is, D: through Z:) and printers", and the target as \\ComputerName\ShareName. No parameter takes a URL, a protocol name or a port.

So net use does not speak SFTP; it binds a drive letter to a UNC path something else already serves. That is why SSHFS-Win works: it registers a network provider under \\sshfs\ for net use to map.

The four routes, side by side

Two of the four install a kernel-mode filesystem driver and two do not. WinFsp describes itself as "a kernel mode file system driver (FSD) and a user mode DLL" supporting "Windows 7 to Windows 11 and the x86, x64 and ARM64 architectures" — what Linux gets from FUSE, but on a managed machine a conversation with IT.

Route 1: SSHFS-Win and WinFsp

The closest thing to sshfs on Windows. Install WinFsp first — the project's instruction is "Install the latest version of WinFsp" — then SSHFS-Win.

winget install SSHFS-Win.SSHFS-Win
net use X: \\sshfs\user@host!2222\srv\data

The syntax is documented as \\sshfs\[LOCUSER=]REMUSER@HOST[!PORT][\PATH], and the prefix changes both the starting directory and the authentication method:

1. \\sshfs\ maps the remote user's home directory.
2. \\sshfs.r\ maps the remote root directory.
3. \\sshfs.k\ maps the home directory using SSH key authentication.
4. \\sshfs.kr\ maps the root directory using SSH key authentication.

The port goes after a !, defaulting to 22. The key restriction is what trips people: for .k and .kr, keys are read from %USERPROFILE%/.ssh/id_rsa and "only keys without a pass phrase are supported". An id_ed25519 with a passphrase will not work through those prefixes; point an SSH config alias at the key instead.

Route 2: rclone mount with WinFsp

rclone's sftp remote takes host, user, port (default 22), pass and key_file, and mounts through the same driver: "to run rclone mount on Windows, you will need to download and install WinFsp."

rclone config create srv sftp host example.com user deploy key_file %USERPROFILE%\.ssh\id_ed25519
rclone mount srv:/srv/data X: --vfs-cache-mode writes --network-mode

A cache mode is effectively mandatory: in the default off mode files "can't be opened for both read AND write", so "many applications won't work with their files on an rclone mount without --vfs-cache-mode writes or --vfs-cache-mode full".

Two Windows gotchas from rclone's SFTP page: "the only ssh agent supported under Windows is Putty's pageant" — not the ssh-agent service you just enabled — and "only unencrypted OpenSSH or PEM encrypted files are supported" as key_file. If the mount will not start, rclone mount FUSE errors covers the driver-side failures.

Route 3: Bitvise SSH Client

A Windows-only application whose published feature list includes "one of the most advanced graphical SFTP clients" and, separately, "SFTP drive mapping". Its licence is unusually generous: "Bitvise SSH Client can be used free of charge, in all types of environments, without limitation," with a purchased licence adding stronger support commitments and indemnification. It covers Windows 11 and Windows Server 2025 back to Windows XP SP3; the version at the time of checking is 9.66. What it does not publish is what the drive mapping installs underneath — so read the driver column as "not documented" rather than "no driver".

Route 4: AnyStorage, with no driver at all

This route inverts the problem: run something that speaks SFTP outwards and WebDAV inwards, and let Windows mount the WebDAV.

AnyStorage 0.2.25, released 23 September 2026, runs on Windows 10 or newer. Add an SFTP connection and open it once, then go to Services in the sidebar, pick the WebDAV tab and press Start. The server listens on http://127.0.0.1:3211 with HTTP Basic auth always on — username anystorage, a 24-character password generated on first use — and File Explorer's Map network drive dialog takes that URL.

The honest limitations. On the free tier the WebDAV server is read-only, and there is no TLS, which is why it binds to loopback. Connections attach lazily, so after restarting the app you open the SFTP connection once and it reappears at the WebDAV root. Windows' native WebDAV client brings its own list: the WebClient service is deprecated as of 2026 and usually stopped, BasicAuthLevel under HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\WebClient\Parameters refuses Basic auth over plain HTTP until set to 2, and FileSizeLimitInBytes caps transfers at 50,000,000 bytes. Skip those and you get "The folder you entered does not appear to be valid", System error 67 or 0x80070043.

What Explorer does with each kind of mount

Not every mount looks the same to Windows.

A net use mapping can only take a letter from "D: through Z:", so C: is out and the number of simultaneous mappings is capped by the alphabet.

An rclone mount is a fixed disk by default; --network-mode makes it a network drive and --volname \\server\share gives it a UNC-shaped name. That choice changes how some applications treat the path, and backup tools in particular behave differently on a network location.

The AnyStorage route is a WebDAV network location, so it inherits Windows' WebDAV client behaviour rather than SFTP's — which is why the registry values above matter more than any SFTP setting.

Underneath all of them, every directory listing is real round trips, so a folder with twenty thousand entries feels like one.

Keeping it mounted after a reboot

There is one documented first-party persistence mechanism, and it belongs to net use: /persistent:yes "saves all connections as they are made, and restores them at next logon". That covers the SSHFS-Win route, which ends in a real mapping.

net use X: \\sshfs\user@host /persistent:yes

Two caveats from the same reference: the default for /persistent is "the setting used last", so set it explicitly, and "deviceless connections are not persistent". For the other three routes persistence is the application's job — rclone's mount documentation covers the mount, not a Windows startup mechanism.

Questions