One question I get asked fairly regularly is how to download (or upload) files using an FTP program. First, it is probably useful to have a bit of understand as to what you are doing. FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol and is a method of transferring files between two computers. This requires a program which is built for this task. A great free one is named FileZilla which you can download at http://filezilla-project.org/download.php?type=client and is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. If you are unsure, you most likely will want to download the one with win32-setup.exe in it’s name. This one is for Windows and will walk you through the installation process and generally makes the install easier. Once it has finished downloading, double click on the file to start the installer. You can leave any of the questions it asks you at the default values.
Now that you have the program installed open it up and you should see a screen similar to this one:
Main Window of Filezilla
This may look overwhelming at first so we’ll point out some of the main features.
- The left side of the screen shows files on your computer
- The right side will show files that are on the remote server
- The bottom pane will show the files that are waiting to be transfered
- and the top pane will show a log of what has happened
If you are just needing to connect to an ftp once and either upload or download a few files, the quick connect bar at the very top will be the easiest option. If this is a site you will be connecting to frequently, you will want to add a bookmark though (more on that later).
Quick Connect
The quick connect bar is at the very top of the window and has 4 fields. One for the Host, Username, Password, and Port. In 99% of cases you can leave the port blank and it will use the default setting (21). Once you have filled in your information hit ‘quick connect’ to connect to the server. If you have the right host, username and password, you should see a list of files now show up in the right pane. If not, double check that you have entered the correct login credentials.
Connected to a server
The right side will show you the files on the server and any folders you have access to. Before downloading anything, take a look at the left side. This will show you where you are are about to download the files to. You’ll want to put the files in an easy to remember place.
Once you have everything ready to go, you can click on a folder, or file in the right pane to select it (hold down shift to select a range of folders or files). Then right click on the selected items and choose download. This will start the process of downloading all the files you have selected. If there are many large files, this may take a fair amount of time so be patient while it works through the list. In the bottom you will see a queue which shows you what file it is currently working on.
Queue Transfer Status
The process for uploading is very similar, except you choose the files from the left pane, and then right click and choose ‘upload’.
After you have finished downloading (or uploading) your files, be sure to click the ‘disconnect’ button in the top navigation bar.
Disconnect from FTP Server
Since there are quite a few steps, here’s a quick summary of what you need to do:
- Download and install FileZilla
- Enter the host, username, and password
- Choose the files you wish to transfer
- To download choose the files from the right pane, right click and choose download
- To upload, choose the files from the left pane, right click them and choose upload
- Wait for the files to finish transferring
- Click the disconnect button when everything is done
That should do it for most cases. In a future post we’ll talk about setting up bookmarked sites, as well as dealing with conflicting file names. Feel free to leave a comment if you have any questions at all.
I use a Free (donations accepted) downloadable program called