Most of the people rely on the direct access to the cPanel of their web hosting server. They should know that using an FTP account, it can be done without accessing the web hosting company website.
You can use the tool like FileZilla to access the file manager of your website. It’s more convenient and doesn’t require any technical skills.
If you don’t know, let me tell you that around 2 years back, most of the people were using an FTP account to backup their websites.
Nowadays, most of the web hosting companies allow its users to have an access to everything via cPanel. It’s because many new tools have been developed to help the users.
But if you need an easy way to backup your website, backup your WordPress theme, deactivate the plugins, you can connect FileZilla to FTP and get those things done.
In this tutorial, you’re going to learn the use of FileZilla and an FTP account. Most of you may not even have an FTP account.
Follow this Step By Step Guide to Access Your Website’s Data Using FTP
First of all, you should check whether you have an FTP account or now. Go to the cPanel of your web hosting account and search for FTP.
In most of the cases, you can find it in the Files section along with the File manager. Open it and check whether you have already created an FTP account or not.
If you haven’t, you have to create one because that’s how you will connect FileZilla to.
You can easily find an option to add the username and the password for your new FTP account. When you accomplish this, you will see it in the list below.
It’s very important to note these details. You will need them in the upcoming steps.
Now let’s start the steps.
Step 1
Download the FileZilla software and install it on your computer. It’s just like any other software you use. Download the downloader, click on that and the installation will start immediately.
After choosing the different options in between, you will see it done within a few seconds. Once it’s done, you have to open it.
Step 2
You will see a few boxes to fill at the top. Those are the details of your FTP account. To connect FileZilla to FTP, there are two ways and I am going to tell you the simplest method.
As I have mentioned above, you need to fill the details of your FTP account you checked in the cPanel of your web hosting.
Host: ftp.yoursite.com (ex. ftp.blogforportfolio.com)
Username: FTP username
Password: FTP account password
Port: 21 (In most cases)
Once you fill these details, you have to click on the “Quickconnect†button and FileZilla will start authenticating the login credentials you have just used.
If you get any error, it means the details are wrong.
It’s really important to check that now you haven’t connected to the server and you can check it by seeing the status of the remote site.
It’s empty. There is no data available right now.
Step 3
After building all the connections, you will see “Directory listing of “/†Successful†which means FileZilla has connected to FTP server.
You may be wondering as if what’s the best possible way to check it? Well, as discussed in the previous step, you can see the status of the remote site.
If you see your website’s folders, it means everything is working.
Step 4
Now it’s important for you to know how you can access the data of the website. As you know, most of the content, media files, WordPress themes, and WordPress plugins are available in the wp-content folder.
You can click on that folder from the “Remote site†box and the box just below it will show you everything which is present in that folder.
You can also check the wp-admin folder and a few others. You can access most of the data of your website using this method.
Why do You Need an FTP Account
Most of the people keep asking the necessity of having an FTP account. Well, it depends on your usage. If you’re a techie person then you will absolutely like to use it.
And if you’re a person limited to the WordPress dashboard and don’t want to deal with the cPanel of the website’s data, you may not need it.
There are a few common things you can do with FileZilla and the FTP account.
- Backup your website
- Migrate any folder from the website to your computer
- Check the changes you have made
- Fix a few WordPress errors
- Delete the malicious code if your website gets hacked
In some cases, even the web hosting server gets compromised and you need to access your website’s data to remove the injected code.
It’s possible only if you know the process to connect FileZilla to FTP. Sometimes, the users get locked away from the WordPress login page and to fix that, an FTP access can be used.
I Hope You Can Connect FileZilla to FTP Within No Time
Every time people read something technical, they fret a lot. This is one of the biggest mistakes people make. You tell me, didn’t you see anything complicated in the steps mentioned above?
Anyone can access his/her website using FileZilla. And if you’re worried about the authenticity of this software then please don’t.
Experts have been using this for many years now. Even I backup my website regularly using this method.
Do you even have an FTP account yet? If not, try this method and if you face any problem, it’s better to ask in the comment section.
We all are here to help you accomplish your goals. I know sometimes, it’s really hard to deal with such things but once to start doing it, you feel confident.
Using an FTP server will help you polish your development and website managing skills. Someone asked me on Twitter about this process and here I am explaining a step by step process.
I hope you found it helpful.
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