What is FTP?

What is FTP?

FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol, and gives us a way to access our web space using a file manager.

To use FTP, we need an FTP client.  A good free one is Filezilla.

Download and install Filezilla

If you don’t have an FTP program on your computer, download and install Filezilla from https://filezilla-project.org/

Filezilla is free and available on PC and Mac computers.

Create an FTP account on your web host. 

I use Stablehost, so I’ll show you screenshots from there as I setup FTP for one of my web sites.

Login to cPanel on Stablehost, and find the FTP Accounts button in the Files section:

Click FTP Accounts.

Enter in a login “username” at the top, and a secure password.  Make a note of these.

In the Directory box, cPanel will auto-insert your login username at the end of the path (in my case “parkbooking”).  This needs to be changed to the folder where your site is located on your server.  With Stablehost, that is the domain name itself, so I need to delete parkbooking and insert parkbookingsoftware.com, like this:

You’ll notice that cPanel offers me available options in a drop down box as I type, so I can just select it.

OK, now click the Create FTP Account button.

If you scroll down a bit, you can see your FTP account added to the list.

Click the Configure FTP Client link on the right, and manual settings will appear.  Although there is a Filezilla configuration file available for download, don’t as it won’t work.  Instead, make a note of YOUR Manual settings (mine are marked in the screenshot above).  

Configuring Filezilla

Open Filezilla and open the Site Manager from the file menu.

Click the New Site button.

Enter a name for the FTP profile.  I find it useful to use the site name.  On the right of the screen, you have more options that need to be entered:

In the Host field, enter the FTP Server information from cPanel. 

In the Port field, enter 21 (or whatever you are told in cPanel.

Under Logon Type, select Normal.

Under User, enter your FTP Username (from cPanel).

In Password, enter your FTP password. 

Click on OK to save the information.  

If you want to test your information was entered correctly, click the small arrow next to the Site Manager button on the toolbar, and click your new profile name:

Filezilla should connect to your server, and display the files in that folder in the right hand panel:

Congratulations.  

You have now set up FTP on your domain, and can access the web space and files located there with Filezilla.  This allows you to manage the files on your server, upload, download etc.

In many cases you won’t need FTP as Wordpress handles the uploading of files to your server, but there are occasions when FTP is useful.