How to connect to your hosting with FTP

FTP — File Transfer Protocol — is how you move files directly onto your hosting account from your own computer, without going through a browser upload form. It has been the standard way to do this for decades, and every hosting account still supports it because it is quick, reliable, and works the same way for one file or ten thousand.

This guide covers connecting for the first time: what details you need, where to find them, and what to do once you are in.

What you need before you start

Every FTP connection is made up of four pieces of information, and all four come from your own control panel rather than from a guide like this one:

• Host — the address of the server your files live on.
• Username — the account the client logs in as.
• Password — set when the FTP account was created, and changeable from the same screen.
• Port — 21 for FTP or FTPS, 22 for SFTP.

Step by step

1. Find your FTP details in your control panel

   Open the FTP section of your control panel. It lists the host, the username for your main account (and any additional FTP accounts you have created), and the port to use. Copy these somewhere you can paste them from, rather than retyping them by hand.

2. Choose an FTP client

   FileZilla is free, available for Windows, macOS and Linux, and is the client most guides — including our own — assume you are using. If you would rather avoid installing software, the file manager built into your control panel does much of the same job from a browser tab.

3. Enter your connection details

   In your client, there are normally four fields to fill in: host, username, password and port. Type them exactly as shown in your control panel. A single typo in the host is the most common reason a first connection fails.

4. Connect and look for public_html

   Click connect. Within a few seconds you should see a folder listing on the right-hand side of the client, representing your hosting account. Inside it, look for a folder called public_html — that is your website's web root, and it is where files need to go for visitors to see them. Files placed outside it are stored on your account but are not part of the live site.

Uploading your first file

Once connected, most clients show two panels: your computer on one side, your hosting account on the other. Navigate into public_html on the remote side, find the file you want to send on the local side, and drag it across — or double-click it, depending on the client. A progress bar shows the transfer; when it finishes, the file appears in the remote listing and, if it is a web page, at your domain a few seconds later.

If it will not connect

A handful of things account for nearly every failed first connection:

• The host, username or password was copied with an extra space or missing character.
• The port does not match the protocol — port 21 for FTP or FTPS, port 22 for SFTP. Mixing these up is one of the most common causes of a stuck connection.
• A firewall on your own computer or network is blocking outbound FTP traffic.
• The client is set to active mode when the network only allows passive, or the other way round.

Our dedicated guide to fixing FTP connection problems works through each of those in more detail, including the active-versus-passive issue, which causes more support tickets than almost anything else in this category.

What to do next

Once you can connect reliably, the two things worth learning next are how file permissions work — because an uploaded file sometimes needs its permissions set correctly before it will run — and how to find your way around once you are inside public_html, which our guide to organising a website's files covers. If you get stuck at any point, our support team can check your account's FTP settings directly.