FTP is an acronym for File Transfer Protocol.
FTP allows you to transfer or upload your web pages and files to your website, or more specifically to your hosting company’s Web Server.
You could transfer your webpage files to your website by using your hosting company’s File Manager application. However, File Managers typically do not remember where you store your files, and they do not remember your FTP Username and FTP Password. Although File Managers are easier to use the first or second time you upload one or two files, they are harder and slower to use than an FTP client.
There are numerous free FTP clients that you can download. A popular one is
FireFTP, a
free FTP Client for Mozilla Firefox. Firefox, of course,
is a very popular Web browser. To download FireFTP simply open Firefox and
do a web search for FireFTP. Make sure you find the link from Mozilla, and
not a third party that wants to download junk onto your system as well.
Currently the link is: http://fireftp.mozdev.org
Once installed, launch FireFTP by choosing Tools > Web Developer > FireFTP or on some versions simply choose Tools > FireFTP from the Firefox Menu bar. If you do not see the Firefox Menu bar showing the Tools option, right-click a blank area of the Firefox title bar (to the right of a tab) and check Menu bar. (Your screen display may vary.)
When FireFTP is opened, click the dropdown in the upper left corner and choose [Create an account…]
Enter your Host (your domain name, such as johnsmith.com) and then enter your
FTP Login ID and FTP Login Password.
Note: Your FTP ID and FTP Password may be different than the password you use to log on to your hosting company.
Browse to your website location on your computer.
Click Edit.
Use the [Connection] tab to set the local folder on your drive that stores your Website.
NOTE1: When using Windows, it is wise to navigate to Documents/My Web Sites/ and create a folder with your domain name, and then store your web pages (index.htm, resume.htm....) and images folder in this folder, as shown above and below.
NOTE2: Some servers require you to store your web pages (index.htm, resume.htm....) and images folder in the public_html folder.
When you finish your setup, you can click [Connect] to connect to and
see your remote site.
Once connected, you can select recently created or edited files and “Drag and Drop” them from the Local pane on the left, to the Remote pane on the right. Or you may click the green Upload arrow [>] or Download arrow in the middle of the folder panes to transfer your files from your local home computer to your remote domain host server.
Reminder: Name your home page index.htm (or .html) in lower case.
You will upload it, and it will link to your
portfolio.htm, resume.htm, and contact.htm pages... which also must be
uploaded to the same folder.
Note: File names are case sensitive on many
web servers.
You must also create an images folder in the
same remote folder; either:
Drag the existing images folder from the
local pane to the remote pane, or
Right-click in the remote panel and choose Create
Directory from the shortcut menu.
You can also Delete and
Rename files from
this shortcut menu as well.
You can open the images folder (double-click it) and upload pictures to the images folder by clicking the green Upload arrow, or by dragging and dropping.
The 3 minute YouTube video tutorial below shows you how to install and
upload files with FireFTP.
(Please wait for load.)