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Chances are, if you’ve jailbroken your iPhone, you know what SSH is.  You know, browsing your iPhone from a terminal over WiFi.  In most cases, you use SSH to add or remove files from the iPhone filesystem, and for such a simple task, using that terminal can be tricky.  So I show you an alternative method: Use an FTP client that supports SSH.

If you run a website or server, you’ll know what an FTP client is.  If not, in short terms, it will allow you to browse a remote location like a server or remote device via the internet.  Some FTP clients have SSH support, which is what you’ll need to browse your iPhone.  There are a bunch of FTP clients out there, but I recommend FileZilla, the open source client that runs on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.

So, to get started, go ahead and download FileZilla from here, and install it on your PC.  Note to Linux users: check your distro’s repositories for FileZilla.  If it doesn’t appear there, install gFTP.  It is closely based on FileZilla, and also has SSH support.  (I expect you have already installed OpenSSH on your iPhone)

Once installed, fire up FileZilla, and locate the Quick Connect bar at the top.  Make sure your iPhone and computer are connected to the same Wifi network.  Get the iPhone’s IP address and enter it into the box labeled ‘Host’.  For the username, type ‘root’, and for the password, type ‘alpine’.  For the port number, type 22, and click Quick Connect.  You should see a bunch of terminal jargon flowing in the box below, and soon you’ll see your iPhone’s filesystem appear in the column on the left.  The column on the right is your computer’s filesystem.

From here, you can browse every corner of your iPhone system, as you would from a terminal, only this is easier.  You can transfer files over, and you can set the permissions by right-clicking on the file and selecting “File Permissions”.

It makes moving file to and from your iPhone much easier, and you don’t have to sit fooling around with the terminal, which is nice.