title: FTP Accounts created at: Fri Oct 18 2024 09:03:41 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) updated at: Sat Feb 08 2025 14:21:32 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) --- # FTP Accounts # Overview You can use this interface to create and manage your website’s File Transfer Protocol (FTP) accounts. FTP allows you to manage your website’s files. !! Note !! To determine which FTP server daemon that your server uses, contact your hosting provider. cPanel & WHM supports the ProFTPD and Pure-FTPd FTP server daemons. On servers that use Pure-FTPd, the system will **only** return the first 10,000 files in each folder. Your hosting provider can adjust this number. !! SSH File Transfer Protocol (SFTP) allows you to transfer files over a secure connection. For more information about SFTP, read our [How To Configure Your SFTP Client](https://docs.cpanel.net/knowledge-base/ftp/how-to-configure-your-sftp-client/) documentation. # Log in to FTP You can **only** access this interface if your hosting provider has enabled FTP access for your account. If your hosting provider has not enabled FTP access for your account, you can use the [*File Manager*](https://docs.cpanel.net/cpanel/files/file-manager/) interface (*cPanel » Home » Files » File Manager*) to manage your site’s files instead. If your cPanel account uses a dedicated IP address, you can use your cPanel account’s username and password to log in to FTP. Otherwise, you **must** use the full FTP account username (`[email protected]`) and password to log in to FTP. # Add FTP Account To create an FTP account, perform the following steps: 1. Enter the desired username in the *Log In* text box. 2. Select the desired domain from the *Domain* menu. 3. Enter and confirm the new password in the *Password* and *Password (Again)* text boxes. Some web hosts require a minimum password strength. You can also click *Password Generator* to generate a strong password. For more information, read our [Password & Security](https://docs.cpanel.net/cpanel/preferences/password-and-security/) documentation. 4. Enter the FTP account’s home directory. The *Directory* text box defines the new FTP account’s top level of directory access. For example, if you enter `example` in the *Directory* text box, the FTP account can access the `/home/$user/example/` directory and all of its subdirectories. The system automatically populates this text box with `public_html/domain.tld/account`, where `account` represents the username that you entered in the *login* text box and `domain.tld` represents the domain you selected in the *Domain* menu. !! Important\ You **cannot** use symbolic links (symlinks) to upload data outside of this directory. 1. Enter the disk space quota, or select *Unlimited*. If an FTP account experiences problems with uploads, you may need to increase the *Quota* value. !! Note\ If your server uses the [ProFTPD FTP](http://www.proftpd.org/) server, you **cannot** use quotas. For more information about your server’s FTP server daemon, contact your hosting provider. 1. Click *Create FTP Account*. The new account will appear in the *FTP Accounts* table. # FTP Accounts The *FTP Accounts* table allows you to manage existing FTP accounts. ## Change Password To change an FTP account’s password, perform the following steps: 1. Click *Change Password* for the desired FTP account. 2. Enter and confirm the new password in the *Password* and *Password (Again)* text boxes. Some web hosts require a minimum password strength. You can also click *Password Generator* to generate a strong password. For more information, read our [Password & Security](https://docs.cpanel.net/cpanel/preferences/password-and-security/) documentation. 3. Click *Change Password*. ## Change Quota !! Remember !! If your server uses the [ProFTPD FTP](http://www.proftpd.org/) server, you **cannot** use quotas. For more information about your server’s FTP server daemon, contact your hosting provider. To change an FTP account’s quota, perform the following steps: 1. Click *Change Quota* for the desired FTP account. 2. Enter the disk space quota, or select *Unlimited*. 3. Click *Change Quota*. ## Delete To remove an FTP account, perform the following steps: 1. Click *Delete* for the FTP account that you wish to remove. 2. Click the desired deletion option: ``` - _Delete Account_ — Remove the FTP account **only**. This will not remove the files that the FTP account’s home directory contains. - _Delete Account and Files_ — Remove the FTP account and all of the files that the FTP account’s home directory contains. !! Warning ``` Only use this option with **extreme** caution. If the FTP account that you delete can access the `public_html` directory, this option automatically removes the `public_html` directory and **all** of its contents, which **will** break your website. ``` - _Cancel_ — Do not delete the account. ``` ## Configure FTP Client !! Note !! FTP does **not** support Server Name Indication (SNI). You **must** use the server’s hostname as the FTP server to connect with SSL. You **cannot** use your domain name. For more information, read our [How To Configure Your SFTP Client](https://docs.cpanel.net/knowledge-base/ftp/how-to-configure-your-sftp-client/) documentation. You **must** install an FTP client on your computer before you download and run the configuration script file in step 3 below. Some options for FTP clients are [Core FTP](http://www.coreftp.com/) for Windows computers or [Cyberduck](http://cyberduck.ch/) for macOS computers. To configure an FTP client, perform the following steps: 1. Click *Configure FTP Client* for the desired FTP account. 2. Click *the FTP Configuration File* under the desired FTP client’s logo. You can choose between Core FTP and Cyberduck. !! Note !! We **only** support auto-configuration for these FTP clients. To use another client, manually configure the client. !! Click *Instructions* to view detailed instructions for your chosen client. 1. Open the configuration script file that was downloaded to your computer. The FTP client automatically opens, configures itself, and connects to your FTP server. # Special FTP Accounts The *Special FTP Accounts* table lists your cPanel account’s primary FTP account and the log access account. The system creates these accounts by default. Unlike other FTP accounts, you cannot modify or delete these accounts. This is because the system links these accounts to administrative aspects of your cPanel account. To log in to a special FTP account, you **must** use the account’s FTP configuration file. The system automatically configures the client for these accounts. For more information about FTP client configuration files, read the [Configure FTP client](https://docs.cpanel.net/cpanel/files/ftp-accounts/#configure-ftp-client) section. ## Primary FTP account This account has FTP access to all files in your cPanel account. It also has access to files that exist outside of your account’s `public_html` directory. When logging in to this account, you should always use the [SFTP (Secure File Transfer Protocol)](https://docs.cpanel.net/knowledge-base/ftp/how-to-configure-your-sftp-client) protocol. ## Log access account This account lets you download your website’s raw access logs. The logs are available in the `/etc/apache2/logs/domlogs/USERNAME` directory, where `USERNAME` is the log access account’s username. This directory contains the FTP transaction logs for domains on webservers running EasyApache 4. You do **not** need to log in to this account to access the FTP transaction logs. !! Note !! To view past FTP connections to your site, navigate to the [*Raw Access*](https://docs.cpanel.net/cpanel/metrics/raw-access/) interface (*cPanel » Home » Metrics » Raw Access*). ## Anonymous FTP accounts You can **only** access these accounts if your hosting provider has enabled this feature. These accounts allow users to anonymously connect via FTP to access your website’s files. You can manage this access in cPanel’s [*Anonymous FTP*](https://docs.cpanel.net/cpanel/files/anonymous-ftp) interface (*cPanel » Home » Files » Anonymous FTP*). When you disable anonymous FTP, the system does **not** remove these accounts.