remix-project/apps/remix-ide/docs/remixd.md

Remixd: Access your Local Filesystem

remixd is an npm module. Its purpose is to give the remix web application access to a folder on your local computer.

The code of remixd is here .

remixd can be globally installed using the following command: npm install -g remixd

Or just install it in the directory of your choice by removing the -g flag: npm install remixd

Then from the terminal, the command remixd -s <absolute-path-to-the-shared-folder> --remix-ide <your-remix-ide-URL-instance> will start remixd and will share the given folder with remix-ide.

For example, to use remixd with Remix IDE ( and not the alpha version) use this command: remixd -s <absolute-path-to-the-shared-folder> --remix-ide https://remix.ethereum.org

Make sure that if you use https://remix.ethereum.org (secure http) in the remixd command (like in the example above), that you are also pointing your browser to https://remix.ethereum.org and not to http://remix.ethereum.org (plain old insecure http). Or if you want to use http in the browser use http in the remixd command.

The folder is shared using a websocket connection between Remix IDE and remixd.

Be sure the user executing remixd has read/write permission on the folder.

There is an option to run remixd in read-only mode, use --read-only flag.

Warning!

remixd provides full read and write access to the given folder for any application that can access the TCP port 65520 on your local host.

From Remix IDE, in the Plugin Manager you need to activate the remixd plugin.

A modal dialog will ask confirmation

Accepting this dialog will start a session.

If you do not have remixd running in the background - another modal will open up and it will say:

Cannot connect to the remixd daemon. 
Please make sure you have the remixd running in the background.

Assuming you don't get the 2nd modal, your connection to the remixd daemon is successful. The shared folder will be available in the file explorer.

When you click the activation of remixd is successful - there will NOT be an icon that loads in the icon panel.

Click the File Explorers icon and in the swap panel you should now see the folder for localhost.

Click on the localhost connection icon: