File Transfer Protocol (FTP)

File Transfer Protocol, or FTP is the protocol used to connect your computer to our web server to facilitate transferring your website files. Most FTP clients will also let you edit and manage your files on the server. Even if you use offline website software to build your site, this software is most likely using FTP to upload the files.

Here is quick guide what FTP is and how to use it to manage your website files.

What is File Transfer Protocol?

Protocols are used extensively in computing and networking. A protocol, at least in this case, is a set of rules that allow devices of different types to communicate with each other. Most servers are built on Linux, where most home users use Windows for their desktop and an iPhone or iPad for mobile use. While all of these devices use very different operating systems (or OS), they are able to communicate with each other for various tasks because of protocols.

A few examples of protocols are the email protocols POP (Post Office Protocol), IMAP (Internet Mail Access Protocol) or SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol). These protocols allow you to check your email on any device, regardless of what OS it is using.

FTP or File Transfer Protocol is yet another common protocol, used mainly for uploading and downloading files to and from a web server. As mentioned above, most web servers are Linux based servers. There are many reasons for this but that is not really important for the sake of this guide. While you can use Linux as your desktop OS, most people do not. Therefor, there needs to be a way to connect your Windows or Mac machine to your Linux web server.

This is precisely what FTP does.

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How do I use File Transfer Protocol?

Much like how you use email protocols, File Transfer Protocol requires an FTP client to connect to the server.

There are many FTP clients out there for you to choose from, but most function the same way at there core. The difference between them is mostly in additional features and visual style.

Most offline website design software also use FTP to connect to your web server to upload files. There is typically a section in the settings of the app that you need to enter your FTP credentials.

While we cannot go over every FTP client available, we can offer some generic information regarding connecting to an FTP clients.

Generic FTP Setting
Username This is set up in your cPanel
Password This is set when creating your FTP account
Host/Server ftp.example.com (replace example.com with your domain name), see note below
Port 21

A note regarding the Host/Server field. This is dependent on whether your domain is pointing to our servers or not.

If your domain is pointing to our servers, this will work fine. Otherwise, you can use either the server IP or the server name instead. If you do not know the server name or IP, you can contact support and they will advise you.

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What FTP client should I use?

What FTP client you use is completely up to you. Where the File Transfer Protocol is a universal standard, all FTP clients should work with our servers (this is the reason FTP exists).

While there are too many FTP clients available to list here, we will advise of some of the most common clients, with guides on how to connect them, below.

Windows FTP clients

FTP client Site Setup Guide
FileZilla https://filezilla-project.org/ Pending
CoreFTP https://coreftp.com/ Pending
WinSCP https://winscp.net/eng/index.php Pending

Mac (Apple) FTP clients

FTP client Site Setup Guide
CyberDuck https://mac.eltima.com/file-manager.html Pending
CommanderOne https://mac.eltima.com/file-manager.html Pending

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Contact our Support Team

If you are still having issues, and need further support, please reach out to our support team using any of these methods.

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