Sequel Ace to DBX: Move Your Connections Without Rebuilding Them One by One

You open a new database client, ready to get to work. Then it hits you: all those hosts, database names, SSH tunnels, and passwords are still sitting in Sequel Ace. Re-entering them one by one? No thanks. 🙃

That’s why I built Sequel Ace to DBX: a small, open-source terminal tool that helps move saved Sequel Ace connections into DBX.

✅ What does it do?

The tool finds your saved Sequel Ace Favorites on macOS, including connections that aren’t currently active. It shows them in a terminal list where you can search and choose exactly what to export. For selected Favorites, it reads passwords from Keychain when available and creates a passphrase-protected DBX import file.

Have connections open in Sequel Ace that aren’t in Favorites? Save them as a .spfs session with Include passwords enabled and add that file to the export. Individual .spf connection files work too.

🚀 From Sequel Ace to DBX in a few steps

You’ll need macOS, Python 3.9 or newer, and Node.js 18 or newer. Then run:

git clone https://github.com/code2prog/sequel-ace-to-dbx.git
cd sequel-ace-to-dbx
python3 sequel_ace_to_dbx.py

Use the arrow keys to browse, Space to select connections, and / to search. Press Enter, choose where to save the JSON file, and set an export passphrase.

Now open DBX, click Import above the connection list, choose the file, and enter that same passphrase. Review the connections in DBX and complete the import. The tool prepares the file; DBX performs the actual import.

🔐 What about the passwords?

The export file is encrypted, and the tool doesn’t write a plaintext password export. macOS may still ask you to approve Keychain access for individual selected connections. That’s a Keychain permission, not a request to type each database password again.

One important limit: this currently handles Sequel Ace TCP/IP and SSH tunnel MySQL connections. Socket, AWS IAM, and Vault connections aren’t converted. It moves connection settings, not your database tables or data.

If you’re moving to DBX and would rather spend your afternoon querying data than rebuilding a connection list, give it a try: Sequel Ace to DBX on GitHub. The README has the full instructions, and the code is available under the MIT license.