As a beginner using Rclone and RcloneView I’m a bit confused about mounting and all the options.
Currently I have macFUSE installed on my system and I use LaunchAgent with a plist (~/Library/LaunchAgents) to call a script that mounts the drive so that it can be accessed from Macs finder.
/usr/local/bin/rclone mount \
--vfs-read-chunk-size 128M \
--vfs-cache-mode full \
--volname 'pCloud astir' \
pcloud:encrypted ~/.mount/rclone_pcloud
I see that when I create mounted drives with RcloneView Mount Manager the mounted drives looks a bit different and I have options like cmount mount2 and nfsmount.
What should I be using when mounting drives on my Mac (fastest, most stable etc.)?
What is the difference between the cmount mount2 and nfsmount options in Mount Manager?
Currently I’m using macFUSE (LaunchAgent, plist and my script) would FUSE-T work just as well (I am under the impression that macFUSE is kind of a hack that Apple might not allow in the future)?
Is macFUSE or FUSE-T needed when choosing nfsmount option?
Should I avoid using LaunchAgent (plist and scripts) to create a mounted drive in combinations with mounted drives created with RcloneView mount manager?
Great questions! Here’s a breakdown of the mount options available in RcloneView on macOS:
Mount options explained:
mount / cmount — These are FUSE-based mount methods. They require either macFUSE or FUSE-T to be installed. cmount uses the cgofuse library (cross-platform, also works on Windows via WinFsp), while mount uses the Bazil library. On macOS, cmount is typically what gets used when macFUSE is installed.
mount2 — Also FUSE-based, using the hanwen/go-fuse/v2 library. It’s a newer implementation that rclone has been moving towards as the preferred FUSE mount backend. Still requires macFUSE or FUSE-T.
nfsmount — This is the recommended option for macOS. It uses a built-in NFS server approach and does not require macFUSE, FUSE-T, or any third-party software at all. It was introduced in rclone v1.65.0 specifically to address the difficulties of using FUSE on Apple Silicon Macs. It works by spinning up a local NFS server and letting macOS mount the NFS volume natively.
Our recommendation for macOS:
Use nfsmount. It’s the cleanest solution — no kernel extensions, no third-party dependencies, and it works reliably on Apple Silicon. This is the direction the rclone community has been heading for macOS.
macFUSE vs FUSE-T:
Your concern is valid. macFUSE relies on a kernel extension (kext), which Apple has been making increasingly difficult to use — especially on Apple Silicon where you need to boot into Recovery Mode to enable it. macFUSE recently added an FSKit backend (macOS 15.4+) that runs entirely in user space, but it’s still new.
FUSE-T is a kext-less alternative that translates FUSE calls into NFS under the hood. It’s more stable and easier to install than macFUSE on modern macOS, but with nfsmount available, you can skip both entirely.
LaunchAgent + RcloneView Mount Manager:
We’d recommend using one or the other to avoid conflicts. If you switch to RcloneView’s Mount Manager, you can remove your LaunchAgent plist and script. RcloneView will handle the mounting for you. Running both could lead to duplicate mounts or resource conflicts.
We also plan to add info tooltips or description text next to the mount type options in the Mount Manager UI, so it’ll be easier to understand the differences at a glance without having to look it up.
Apologies for the late reply, and hope this helps! Let us know if you have any other questions.