I get asked quite frequently how to transfer files to and from a server using FTP, so heres a short how-to on the subject.
>1. Download some FTP software
This step isn’t super vital, but FTP software helps you manage things a lot easier especially when you want to use SSL or some sort of advanced feature. I will be showing this tutorial using FlashFXP which is a personal favorite of mine and is very full featured. Download and install it using the standard options, if you end up liking it, buy it, otherwise it will expire after 30 days (actually 60, but it gets super annoying after 30).
>2. Find out the FTP address and login information for the server.
The ‘host name’ of the server (which looks a lot like a regular web address) is usually marked by having ‘ftp’ in the front of it, such as ftp.example.com. It also might be given in the form of an IP address which is a series of numbers seperated by periods, such as 192.168.0.10. This is the internet address of the server you are trying to access, and is probably not something you have control over. Also there should be a username and password supplied as well. Most services that allow the FTP protocol allow you to choose what this is. Make it easy to remember but try to make your password contain an alphanumeric sequence.
>3. Fire up FlashFXP
Start up FlashFXP and get to the main screen (if you downloaded the evaluation version, just click “I Agree”) which looks like this..
>4. Enter in your login info.
You can access the login screen either by pressing F8 or clicking on the orangish lightning bolt at the top middle of the screen. This will open a new window where you have some fields to fill in.
The form fields are pretty self explanitory. I filled in some examples for you. Don’t worry about anything else on that form, the defaults should work just fine. After that press connect. After a few seconds (depending on your connection speed and server load) you should be connected, and see some fun stuff going on in the right hand pane of the FlashFXP window.
This looks pretty similar to the explorer window for Windows. Nothing too new here, those are just the files stored on the server that you are connected to and any files that are there too. Now lets go to transferring files.
>5. Transferring Files
Now we havent discussed much about the left window in FlashFXP, but you already are familiar with it. It’s a view of the files on your computer. You can navigate through them just like you do in the My Computer window. So pick some place where you want to download a file, perhaps in My Doccuments or somewhere else you keep downloads. Then go over to the server and find a file that looks worth downloading. Right click on that file and press “Transfer”. Sit back and let the magic happen.
The file should be on your system and everything is good. You can also do this by dragging the file into the left hand screen. To upload it’s just the opposite, drag or right click the file and press transfer that you want to upload to the server from your local filesystem. You can even drag files from the My Computer or Windows explorer window into the FlashFXP program pane to upload files. Uploading will take a while longer than downloading as a rule of thumb, unless you are on the same network. On the bottom there is a progress bar that shows how long this is taking to complete, always nice to know.
>Thats it. Those are pretty much the basics of file transfer play around with things and you will be able to get the hang of the more advanced functions.
NOTE: For Mac users or Windows users who dont want to download any new software, you can open up a browser like Safari or Internet Explorer and type in the host address in the URL bar with the ‘ftp://’ prefix in front of it, after a few seconds it should pop up a window to enter login information. The remote files on the server will be displayed much like those on your local filesystem and you can drag and drop them as such. While this method may be simpler, usually transfer time estimates are very off when using these programs, and they do not allow more advanced features like queue, or site to site transfers. Plus the verbose output from FlashFXP or other FTP programs can allow more advanced users figure out problems with their connection.
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on Wednesday, July 26th, 2006 at 12:45 am and is filed under How To.
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