How to Upload Your Website Using FTP

man holding beaming tablet
 People Images/Getty Images
by Jennifer Kyrnin
Updated January 15, 2018

Web pages can't be seen if they are only on your hard drive. Learn how to get them from there to your web server using FTP, which stands for File Transfer Protocol. FTP is a format for moving digital files from one location to another over the internet. Most computers have an FTP program you can use, including a text-based FTP client. But it's easiest to use a visual FTP client to drag and drop files from your hard drive to the hosting server location.​

  • Difficulty: Average
  • Time Required: 5 minutes

Here's How

  1. In order to put up a website, you need a web hosting provider. So the first thing you need is a hosting provider. Make sure that your provider offers FTP access to your website. You will need to contact your hosting provider if you aren't sure.
  2. Once you have a hosting provider, in order to connect by FTP you need some specific information:
      • Your username
  3. Password
  4. The hostname or URL where you should upload files
  5. Your URL or web address (especially if it's different from the hostname
  6. You can get this information from your hosting provider if you aren't sure what it is.
  7. Make sure your computer is connected to the internet and that your WiFi is working.
  8. Open an FTP client. As I mentioned above, most computers come with a built-in FTP client, but these tend to be fairly hard to use. It's better to use a visual style editor so you can drag and drop your files from your hard drive to your hosting provider
  9. Following the instructions for your client, put in your hostname or the URL where you should upload your files.
  1. If you try to connect to your hosting provider, you should be prompted for a username and password. Enter them in.
  2. Switch to the correct directory on your hosting provider.
  3. Select the file or files you want to load onto your website, and drag them to the hosting provider pane in your FTP client.
  4. Visit the website to verify that your files uploaded correctly.

Tips

  1. Don't forget to transfer images and other multimedia files that are associated with your website, and put them in the correct directories.
  2. It can often be easiest to just select the entire folder and upload all the files and directories at once. Especially if you have fewer than 100 files.

What You Need

  • FTP client