File Transfer Protocol (FTP) helps us to transfer files between our computer and the server hosting our WordPress site. File upload is necessary when we want to make changes to our CSS or config files in the server. Also, the FTP option helps us to fix our WordPress site when the admin area is inaccessible due to issues such as plugin conflict.
Although most of the hosting services provide their own interface for file transfer it may not be as user-friendly as a windows tool that makes the process very simple. I have already covered in detail about popular FTP desktop clients like Cyberduck and FileZilla. In this tutorial, I will explain another popular FTP desktop client known as CoreFTP. This free tool is very much similar to the others that I have explained before.
Step1: Go to the CoreFTP website and download the free version of the tool.
Step2: Now double click the exe file to start the installation process.
Step3: Select all the checkboxes and click the Next button to continue with the installation setup.
Step4: Select the folder location in C drive and click the Install button to complete the process.
Step5: Now launch the application to see the folder structure as shown below. As we can see the bottom window has two panes. The left pane shows the files and folders from our local computer. The right pane is for displaying server files and folders. This pane is currently empty as we have not connected to any server.
Step6: Let us now connect to a server for transferring some files. Go to the Connect option from the files menu.
First, we have to provide a site name. This name has no significance and is for our understanding only. Then we have to provide the Host IP, Username, Password, and Port Number. We can get this information from our hosting provider. After providing these credentials click the Connect button.
Step7: After successfully establishing the connection we can our server files and folders in the bottom right pane. Now let us upload a sample text file to our server. We are uploading the file to the public_html folder in our server. For this first, let us navigate to this folder path on our server. Click on the public_html folder to view its contents.
Step8: Select the sample text file we want to upload and right-click the mouse. A menu with an Upload option will appear as shown below.
Click on the Upload menu item to start the upload process. Depending on the size of the file and our network speed the process may take some time. We can view the status in the bottom window as shown below.
Step9: Once the process is complete we can see our uploaded file in the right pane and the pending status will disappear.
Thus we have successfully uploaded a file to the server using FTP.
Step10: Let us now download the same file back to our system from the server. For this right-click on the file name in the right pane. A menu with a download option will appear. Just click this Download menu item to start the download process.
Just like the upload process the status will be displayed on the bottom pane for download also.
Step11: We can also delete files from the server using this tool. Just right-click the file we want to delete on the right pane and select the Delete option.
A confirmation message will appear. Click the Yes button to complete the delete process.
Thus we have successfully learned to transfer files between our computer and server using CoreFTP in few simple steps.
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