How To Use cPanel File Manager

INTRODUCTION TO CPANEL FILE MANAGER

cPanel has a nifty File Manager that is actually quite good. You can do a lot of things with the built in cPanel File Manager that you cannot do via regular FTP.


We are going to cover a few basic things you can do in File Manager in this help document. This is in no way exhaustive and is really just meant to 'introduce' you to File Manager. Most everything should be fairly self intuitive as you begin to use it.

Create a Folder or File
How to Delete a Folder or File.
How to Copy a Folder or File.
How to Move a Folder or File.
How to Upload
How to Delete a Folder or File.
How to Rename
How to Compress a Folder or File.
How to Edit a File

HOW TO CREATE A FOLDER OR FILE

Login to your cPanel account. Click on File Manager icon. Then click on the public_html directory. (this is where your primary website and domain files are located and what is visible to the world when being viewed in a web browser.



Click on the +File or +Folder in the upper right. Give your file or folder a name and then click 'Create New File'.


After you do so, you will see your new file. (it's currently blank/empty).

### HOW TO DELETE A FOLDER OR FILE

You can either right click on the file for a pop up menu with the delete along with other options, or simply click on the file/folder so it turns 'blue' when selected. Once you do that the 'Delete' in the upper menu will be available.

After you do that, you'll see a menu to 'skip' the trash can. Check that. Then Confirm.

HOW TO COPY A FOLDER OR FILE

If you click on the file or folder first, you can use either the now visible 'copy' link in the top menu or you can right click on the file for the 'copy' feature.


After you click on copy, you'll need to name the file or folder something different to copy it. In our case here, simply test2.html then click Copy Files.

HOW TO MOVE A FOLDER OR FILE

There are a couple of ways to do this. The easiest is simply to click on the folder or file, hold the left mouse button down and you can drag the folder or file to another directory. Pretty easy to do. If you hold down the cntrl button on your keyboard you can select multiple files and drag them. The manual way is to use the 'move' feature. Simply right click on the file for the menu or use the top menu above after you click on it...


On the pop up, write in the directory you will be moving it to. In this case, we are moving it to the 'test' folder. Then click on 'Move Files'

HOW TO UPLOAD FILES

Uploading files is pretty easy and straight forward. Simply click the link in the top menu. After that, select your files and they will be uploaded!


Another tab will open. From there, find your files and upload them!

HOW TO DELETE A FOLDER OR FILE

You can simply click the file or folder you want to delete and use the delete option in the menu or the delete option in the top menu!


On the pop up, skip the trash folder and hit confirm.

HOW TO RENAME A FOLDER OR FILE

The easiest way is simply to click on the file name and then you can change the name. Or click and use the menu to rename or use the menu at the top to rename the file.


Using the menu, right click on the file...

HOW TO COMPRESS A FOLDER OR FILE

Using the compress feature in file manager is certainly something you cannot do in a FTP client! You can compress any file or folder. For this example we are going to compress the 'test' folder into a single file.


On the pop up you can choose which type of compression you want. For this example we chose to use 'zip'. Then click 'Compress Files'.


After the folder or file is compressed it will then show up in your file manager. If you wish to 'extract it' just click the file and then use the button at the top or in the right click menu.

HOW TO EDIT FILES

Although File Manager is quite powerful, the editor is well very basic. Good for minor tweaks and updates. We do recommend using a desktop client to edit your files and then simply upload them.

It is advised to use the 'copy' feature to make a backup before any file you edit!



This covers this introduction to the File Manager tutorial. Thank you for being a NameHero customer!

Updated on: 13/02/2025