How to configure FTP on FileZilla client program?

To manage a website remotely, FTP is one of the most preferred way. Whether you want to move your development files to a production server or to backup some files from the website to your local computer, you can easily do so using a free software such as FileZilla.

FileZilla is a cross-platform graphical FTP, SFTP, and FTPS file management tool for Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, and more.

FTP accounts allow you to access your website’s files through a protocol called FTP or File Transfer Protocol. Use a third-party FTP program such as FileZilla to access your files. To log into your account via FTP, enter “website domain” as your FTP host, the username, and password.

Let's talk about how to configure the FTP client (FileZilla in this case):

First, create an FTP account

1. Login to the control panel provided by your web host. In this case we have a CPanel and on which this tutorial is based on.
2. In CPanel, click on “FTP Accounts”
3. Enter the details required to create FTP account and click on “Create FTP account”.
4. Once created, the FTP account is displayed.

Creating a new FTP Account

Configuring FTP client

1. Click on “Configure FTP Client” next to the FTP user you just created.
2. FTP user details are displayed.
3. You can use the details to manually log in to your website from an FTP client.

Manual login with the FTP account details

Configuring Site Manager on FileZilla Client
So that you don’t have to enter the host, username and password each time you want to connect, you can setup site manager in FileZilla manually or by importing the configuration file available for a particula user on the FTP account page described above. To do so -

• Click on “Configure FTP Client” next to the FTP user you just created.
• FTP user details are displayed.
• Click on the “FTP Configuration File” to download. It will be an XML file.
• Open the FileZilla FTP client.
• Select Import from the File menu (File ⇀ Import).
• Select the XML file you have just downloaded and click OK.
• To open a connection to your FTP server, select the Site Manager feature from the File menu (File ⇀ Site Manager).

• Select your domain from the Select Entry menu.
• Click the Connect button to connect to your FTP server.
• To always let Site Manager remember password, set “Login Type” for that account to “Normal”.

That is all.
Now you can connect to your website using FileZilla FTP client at ease.