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Publishing your website with FTP or a desktop editor

If you build your website on your computer, you need to upload its files to your hosting account before anyone can see it. Almost every website editor and FTP app does this the same way, so these settings work whichever tool you use.

Your connection settings

Section titled “Your connection settings”
Setting What to enter
Host / server ftp.example.com (replace example.com with your domain). Before your domain points to us, use your server’s IP address from your welcome email.
Protocol FTP, with explicit TLS (sometimes called FTPES) if your tool offers it
Port 21
Username Your cPanel username, or the full name of an FTP account you created, such as designer@example.com
Password The password for that username
Remote folder public_html for your main domain. Addon domains and subdomains have their own folders, shown in cPanel’s Domains page.

Not sure of your username? See Finding your cPanel username.

Upload your site

Section titled “Upload your site”
  1. Open your FTP app or editor’s publishing settings and enter the details above.
  2. Connect, then open the public_html folder on the server side.
  3. Upload your website’s files and folders. Your home page must be called index.html or index.php and sit directly inside public_html, not inside another folder.
  4. Open your domain in a browser to check the site.
Section titled “Popular tools”
  • FileZilla (free, Windows, macOS and Linux): enter the host, username, password and port in the Quickconnect bar, or save them in File → Site Manager.
  • Visual Studio Code: install an FTP/SFTP extension, add the settings above to its configuration file, and upload on save.
  • Dreamweaver: go to Site → Manage Sites, add a server and choose FTP as the connection.
  • Other editors: look for a Publish, Remote site or FTP option and use the same settings.

No FTP app? Use File Manager

Section titled “No FTP app? Use File Manager”

For a few files, you don’t need any software. Zip your site on your computer, upload the zip in cPanel’s File Manager, then extract it in public_html. See Uploading and downloading files using cPanel’s File Manager.

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