Web Hosting > Features > File Management

Easy File Management

Manage files online or through FTP

You can manage your website files in a number of easy ways: through standard FTP, through an online file manager, or through a desktop program such as Dreamweaver, iWeb or Frontpage.

Our hosting packages are set up within a file system. The root of your account contains a number of subfolders, one of which is 'public_html' - this is what you see when you load up www.yourdomain.com.

Online File Manager

Take a graphical walkthrough of the online file manager to see what it can do!

The online file manager through the Vidahost cPanel (Hosting Control Panel) gives you access to view your files online through an explorer interface. You can perform a number of actions, uploading, editing, moving and changing the attributes of files without having to put any software on your home computer.

Standard FTP

Watch a video on how to use FTP.

Our hosting lets you use the widely used file transfer protocol (FTP). For this you just need a hostname (ftp.yourdomain.com), and your cPanel username and password which we provide when you sign up. You can also set up additional usernames and passwords (even going to separate folders) through cPanel.

Using a program such as LeechFTP, FileZilla or CuteFTP you can connect easily and drag and drop through your desktop, and the web disk utility lets you see your hosting space as a folder.

At Vidahost we are mainly Mac users and use a fantastic piece of software called Coda. A PC alternative might be Zend studio. Software such as this lets you edit and code through your desktop.

You can create additional ftp accounts for extra users in cPanel, and also manage ftp user sessions.

Desktop Publishing Software

You can take this one step further by using desktop publishing software such as Dreamweaver or Apple iWeb or (the now slightly outdated) Frontpage.

These let you manage your design on your desktop and then publish it online to your website, again usually through the FTP protocol. It's *very* straightforward.

If you want to use Frontpage's publishing options, you will need to install frontpage extensions.

Tutorials

Take a look at the FTP overview here for an introductory overview.

The following tutorials will show you how to use FTP with your desktop program:

• CoreFTPLite
• FileZilla
• LeechFTP
• SmartFTP
• WinSCP
• WsFTP

Additional File Management Features

We can't possibly list all the features of our file management, but here are some key items:

• View Disk Space Usage - monitor usage of folders.
• Password protect specific directories - control who has access to your data!
• Leech Protection - make sure people aren't leeching your content.
• HotLink Prevention - stop people hotlinking your content
• Deny IPs - block specific IPs from accessing your site.
• Sign your data with GnuPG - for additional security.