What is FTP?
File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is the simplest and most secure way to exchange files over the Internet.
FTP is most commonly used to upload and download files from your web site’s account, making it easier and faster to create a website. You create the site’s pages on your computer and upload them to your hosting account through FTP, turning your files into a public-facing website in minutes.
An FTP client is a piece of software designed to transfer files between two computers over the Internet. In this case, you would be connecting your computer to our hosting server. There are many FTP clients available for all operating systems, and web design and development software also often comes with FTP features built in.
The classic style of an FTP client is a two-pane design, with the pane on the left displaying the files on your computer and the pane on the right displaying the files on the remote computer. And through this two-pane design, you can drag and drop files from one pane to the other, or highlighting a file and clicking the direction arrows between the panes.
Additional features of an FTP client can include:
- Multiple file transfer - Uploading or downloading several files at the same time
- Auto resuming - Automatically starting an upload or a download after an interruption in the connection
- Queuing - Setting up a number of files to upload or download after another has finished
- Scheduling - Choosing a particular time to perform an upload or a download
- Synchronisation - Automatically matching files on the remote server and the local server
- Scripting - Running certain scripts from the FTP console