A practical guide to FTP/SFTP integrations with n8n in 2025

Let's be honest, manually shuffling files from one place to another is a huge time-suck. It's one of those tedious tasks that’s just begging to be automated. That’s exactly why tools like n8n exist, giving you a way to automate file transfers using FTP and SFTP servers.

This guide will walk you through what these integrations are all about, how they work, and what they’re actually good for. But we're also going to be straight with you about their limits. While this kind of automation is a lifesaver for technical file-shuffling, it really hits a wall when your main goal is making the information inside those files easy for teams like customer support to access.

What are FTP/SFTP integrations with n8n?

First, let's get the acronyms out of the way.

You've got FTP (File Transfer Protocol), the classic, old-school method for moving files between computers. Think of it as a basic digital courier. Then you have SFTP (SSH File Transfer Protocol), its modern, more secure sibling. It does the same job but wraps everything in a layer of encryption to keep your data safe in transit. For any serious business use, SFTP is the way to go.

Then there’s n8n, a workflow automation tool that’s a bit like a Lego kit for technical folks. It lets you connect different apps and services using a visual editor to build some pretty powerful automated processes without having to write all the code from scratch.

So, when you combine them, FTP/SFTP integrations with n8n let you create workflows that automatically manage files on a remote server. You can schedule things like downloading daily reports, uploading backups, or tidying up directories, all without you having to do it manually.

A look at the n8n user interface, which allows for building FTP/SFTP integrations with n8n.

Core components of setting up FTP/SFTP integrations with n8n

While you don’t need to be a top-tier developer to use n8n, setting up a solid workflow does mean you’ll need to get your hands a little dirty with a few technical bits and pieces.

Authentication methods: Passwords vs. private keys

To connect to an SFTP server, you have two main choices. The first is your standard username and password combo. It works, but it’s not exactly Fort Knox.

The second, and much better, option is key-based authentication. This uses a unique private key (a long string of text) that acts like a digital fingerprint to verify your identity. It's way more secure, especially for anything important. This is where things can get a bit technical. As you’ll see people mention in the n8n community forums, you often have to convert key formats (say, from a PuTTY key to an OpenSSH key), which is the kind of step that can easily trip you up if you don’t do this stuff every day.

Key operations

The n8n FTP node gives you a handful of core actions to play with. Here are the main ones:

• List: This lets you peek inside a directory to see what files are in there. It’s handy for checking if a new file has shown up before your workflow tries to grab it.

• Download: This pulls files from the remote server so you can do something with them, like downloading daily sales reports and dropping them into a shared folder.

• Upload: This pushes files onto the server from another place. A common use is automatically backing up new documents from Google Drive to your SFTP server.

• Delete / Rename: These are your basic housekeeping tools that help keep directories from becoming a total mess, like archiving old logs or renaming files once they’ve been processed.

Building workflows: Triggers and actions

Every n8n workflow has a simple logic: it starts with a "trigger" and then performs a series of "actions." The trigger is what kicks things off, maybe a set schedule (like every morning at 3 AM), a webhook, or even a new message in a Slack channel. The actions are just the steps that follow.

For example, a pretty common workflow might use a schedule trigger that runs every night. The first action could be to list new log files on an SFTP server. The next action would download them, and the final one might upload them to cloud storage for safekeeping before sending a quick Slack message to a channel to say the backup is done.

Common use cases and limitations

For the right kind of job, n8n is an incredibly useful tool, especially for tasks that live in the world of IT operations or DevOps.

Powerful use cases

Here are a few situations where this type of automation really shines:

• Automated Backups: You can set up a workflow to grab nightly backups of a website's files or a database and zip them over to a remote server for safekeeping. Set it and forget it.

• Data Migration: If you're faced with moving thousands of files from an old system to a new cloud storage solution, a well-designed n8n workflow can do all the heavy lifting for you.

• Log File Aggregation: You can have workflows that automatically pull server logs from different places and gather them in one spot for analysis with tools like Splunk or Datadog.

• Report Distribution: Need to get a report from your business intelligence tool to a partner every morning? You can automate fetching the report and dropping it onto an FTP server for them to pick up.

This video explains how to use the n8n FTP/SFTP node for seamless file transfer automation.

Where these integrations fall short for support teams

Okay, this is where we need to have a frank chat. While n8n is fantastic at moving files, it's the wrong tool if your goal is to manage knowledge for non-technical teams like customer support.

• It requires technical know-how: Let’s be real, your support manager probably isn't going to spend their afternoon building and debugging n8n workflows. The setup involves getting comfortable with things like cron jobs, data mapping, and figuring out what to do when things go wrong. This just creates a bottleneck where your support team has to rely on your already-swamped developers for any little change.

• It moves files but doesn’t understand them: This is the big one. An n8n workflow can perfectly transfer a 50-page PDF of your product manual, but it has absolutely no idea how to read that PDF and answer a customer’s question about a specific feature. All that valuable knowledge stays locked inside the file, totally out of reach.

• It’s not a knowledge management tool: There’s no dashboard to see what information people are actually using, no analytics to find gaps in your help docs, and no way to figure out what your customers are asking about most often. It’s a black box that just does its job without offering any real insight.

For support and IT service management teams, the goal isn't just to move data. It's to make that data instantly useful for solving problems for customers or employees. That requires a platform built for finding and using knowledge, not just for transferring files.

The alternative: A knowledge-first approach

This is the very problem we built eesel AI to solve. It’s designed to tackle the exact limitations we just talked about by focusing on understanding your knowledge, not just moving it around.

Go live in minutes, not months

Instead of spending hours (or even days) fiddling with nodes, setting up security keys, and testing workflows, you can get up and running with eesel AI in minutes. It's a genuinely self-serve platform. A support lead can connect sources like your help center, Zendesk, or Confluence with just a few clicks. No API keys to hunt down or developers to bother.

From data transfer to data understanding

eesel AI doesn't just shuffle your files; it instantly digests and understands the content inside them. It’s like the difference between a courier delivering a sealed book and a librarian who has read the book and can tell you what’s on page 42. It securely connects to all your company knowledge and uses that info to power AI agents that can draft accurate replies in your help desk, answer employee questions in Slack, or even fully automate resolving tickets. It can also train on your past tickets to learn your brand's voice and common solutions, which is something a file transfer tool just can't do.

Confident rollout with simulation and analytics

One of the most nerve-wracking parts of automation is flipping the "on" switch. With a custom-built workflow, you just have to hope you’ve thought of every possible scenario. eesel AI takes that guesswork out of the equation with a powerful simulation mode. You can test your AI on thousands of your past tickets before it ever touches a live customer conversation. This gives you a clear, accurate forecast of how it will perform, so you can go live feeling totally confident.

Feature	Technical Workflow Automation (n8n + FTP)	Knowledge-Driven Automation (eesel AI)
Primary User	Developer, DevOps Engineer	Support Manager, IT Lead
Core Function	Moves and manages files between systems.	Understands content to answer questions & automate tasks.
Setup Time	Hours to days; requires technical configuration.	Minutes; truly self-serve with one-click integrations.
Knowledge Access	Transfers files, but content remains locked.	Instantly indexes and understands content from any source.
Testing	Manual testing of workflow logic is required.	Built-in simulation on historical data before going live.
Maintenance	Requires ongoing monitoring and developer fixes.	Provides analytics on knowledge gaps for easy improvement.

Pricing

n8n has a free self-hosted option along with several cloud plans. Their paid plans are mostly based on how many workflow executions you use each month. For instance, their "Starter" plan might get you 2,500 executions, while the "Pro" plan gives you more.

This model is fine for predictable, scheduled tasks. But it can get pricey and hard to predict if your workflows are triggered all the time by user actions. In a support context, a platform like eesel AI has more predictable pricing based on AI interactions, which lines up better with the actual value you're getting: real answers and solved tickets.

Choosing the right tool

At the end of the day, this is all about using the right tool for the right job. FTP/SFTP integrations with n8n are a fantastic choice for technical teams who need to automate routine, file-based jobs like backups, migrations, and report delivery. For moving data from point A to point B, it’s a powerful and flexible solution.

But for customer service, IT service management, and internal support teams, the real challenge isn't moving files. It’s about unlocking the valuable knowledge that's trapped inside them. For that, a purpose-built, knowledge-first platform is a much more effective, scalable, and user-friendly answer.

Unlock your knowledge, not just your files

If you've hit the limits of simple file transfer automation and you're ready to give your teams the gift of instant, accurate answers, it might be time to look beyond traditional workflow tools. eesel AI connects to all the places your knowledge already lives and puts that information to work.

Ready to stop shuffling files and start delivering answers? Sign up for eesel AI for free and see if you can build an AI support agent in the next few minutes.