How to use FTP (Beginner’s Guide)

While working on your website, it is inevitable that you will encounter a situation where you will have to connect to your server via FTP. FTP stands for file transfer protocol. It’s there to support you whenever you need to upload a new file to your server, edit a file on your website, or even create a backup of all your WordPress files.

You can do all this in several ways, but the most common method you will encounter is using an FTP client to access your server’s files. In this article, we will show you where to download the FTP client of your choice and how to use it.

How to Choose an FTP Client

Naturally, the first step would be to download the FTP client you want to use. An FTP client is a piece of software that allows you to access your website’s files on the FTP server you are using. There are some popular FTP clients you should consider, for example, FileZilla, cyber duckand WinSCP It is among the most popular and widely used. You can choose one of these or any other FTP client to your liking. For the purposes of this tutorial, we will use FileZilla to walk you through the steps of a file transfer protocol. The concept is the same for any of these clients and with minor differences this tutorial will apply to all FTP clients.

Installing FileZilla

To download FileZilla FTP client once per page Download FileZilla Client button.

After downloading the setup file double click on to start the installation process.

An installation wizard will guide you through the steps of installing FileZilla. After you finish the process, you can start your new FTP client.

How to Use the Installed FTP Client

At its core, an FTP client is a local computer program used to access files located on a website’s servers, which may also be referred to as FTP servers. Since these two are not physically connected, you will need to tell the client how and where to access the server and files in question. This information has been declared by you. WordPress hosting provider after activating the hosting account. After registering your hosting account, you should have received your FTP login credentials in an email. If not, you should reach out to your hosting provider’s support service or search for them in your hosting account’s cPanel dashboard.

How to Create New FTP Credentials

If you can’t find your FTP credentials, don’t worry. You can create new credentials from your cPanel. To access or create information you will need login to your cPanel and Click the FTP Accounts link.

This will take you to a form to create a new FTP account.

There are a few things to note about this form. You will need to select the domain you want to access from the drop-down menu. This will automatically fill the Index text box. After adding all the necessary information, Press the Create FTP Account button.

How to Connect to Your FTP Server

Once you have your login credentials, you can connect to your server via FTP. To do this, open FileZilla and navigate to: File > Site Manager.

A pop-up window will appear where you can add your website information. Click ‘new site‘ button and provide a title for your website.

in the next column, Enter your website’s FTP information.

Starting with the protocol your hosting uses is FTP or SFTP. you should always choose SFTP if your hosting provider supports it. Feel free to test this option first and switch to FTP if it doesn’t connect using this option.

Next Enter your host. This is usually your domain name.

Under the login type field, Select ‘Normal’ and then enter your username and the password we collected earlier.

Now you can click on Connect Press the button to connect to the FTP server. This will save your website’s FTP settings for future use and open a new FTP connection to your website.

If this is your first time connecting to your website from this computer, FileZilla may show you a certificate popup.

Just tick the box next to ‘.Always trust the certificate for future sessions‘ and click on OK Press the button to continue.

FileZilla will attempt to log in to your website using the provided credentials. After connecting, under ‘remote siteIn the ‘ column you will be able to see the files on your website’s server.

This column displays files and folders on your website’s server, while the ‘Local site’ column displays files on your computer.

How to Upload Files to Your Server with FTP

You can browse the Local site section to find the files you want to upload to the server. Now you can’t just upload files anywhere and expect it to work, as WordPress needs to have the correct file placement. You need to know where to upload the file on your WordPress site. Just spoof the file path on your local website from the wp-content folder.

Finally after finding the file on both your computer and server to upload, right click select and To upload options from the menu that appears.

For example, if you want to install a premium theme on your server, you will first download and unzip the theme folder on your computer. After that you can upload it to the /wp-content/themes/ folder on your website.

How to Download Files via FTP and Create a Backup of Your Website

FTP can also be used to download files from your website. To download a file from the server right click in the files or folders you want to download underRemote Site‘ column and click the download button.

This means you can use your FTP client to backup all WordPress files. To do this, simply select all files and folders in the root directory of your site and download them to your computer. This will create a backup on your local device that you can restore to the server later via the same FTP client.

However, please note that this is only a backup of your WordPress files and does not contain your content, namely your WordPress database. If you want to take a full backup of your website, you should also create a manual backup of your database.

final thoughts

Now that you know how to use FTP, you can easily access, edit, and upload files on your server. This also allows you to backup the installation and make many changes to WordPress and theme files.