DirectAdmin File Manager and FTP: Uploading and Managing Your Website Files

Most day-to-day hosting jobs come down to moving files: uploading a theme, replacing a logo, editing a config file, or restoring a folder from a backup. DirectAdmin gives you two ways to do it. File Manager works in the browser and needs no setup; FTP suits large uploads and people who work with many files at once. This guide covers both.

Where your website files live

Every DirectAdmin account has a home folder. Inside it, the domains folder holds one subfolder per domain, and inside each of those is public_html, the folder the web server actually serves. A file saved at domains/yourdomain.com/public_html/logo.png is visible at https://yourdomain.com/logo.png.

Files outside public_html are not reachable from the web, which makes the home folder a safe place for backups and private files. The private_html folder next to public_html is normally linked to it so HTTP and HTTPS serve the same content. Subdomains get their own folder inside the parent's public_html, as explained in our addon domains and subdomains guide.

Open File Manager and find public_html

Log in to DirectAdmin, expand System Info & Files in the left menu and click File Manager. It opens at your home folder. Double-click domains, then your domain name, then public_html. Bookmark that path mentally, because almost everything you upload goes there.

The toolbar and right-click menu offer the usual file operations: create a file or folder, upload, download, copy, move, rename, delete, compress, extract, edit and change permissions. Deleted items go to a trash folder that can be emptied later, which has saved more than one site from a mis-click.

Two habits keep File Manager tidy. When you set old files aside, create a folder such as old-site outside public_html rather than inside it, so leftover copies are never served to visitors or indexed by search engines. And use the compress option on a folder before downloading it, since one archive downloads faster and more reliably than a tree of individual files.

Upload, extract and edit files

To edit a file, right-click it and choose edit. The built-in editor is fine for small changes such as adding a line to .htaccess, fixing a database name in wp-config.php or updating a phone number in an HTML page. For larger edits, download the file, change it locally and upload it again.

File permissions: what 644 and 755 mean

Each file and folder has a permission number that controls who can read, write and run it. On shared hosting you rarely need to change these, but a wrong permission is a common cause of blank pages or upload errors after a migration from another host.

To change a permission, select the file or folder in File Manager and use the permissions option, then type the number or tick the boxes. Apply 755 to folders and 644 to files recursively if a whole site arrived from a host that used different defaults.

When FTP is the better tool

File Manager is ideal for quick jobs. FTP wins when you are uploading gigabytes of images, syncing a local development folder to the server every day, or giving a developer access to one site without handing over your DirectAdmin password. An FTP client also resumes interrupted transfers, which matters on a patchy connection. FTP suits a team as well: each person gets a login that can be removed later, and nobody has to share the account password.

Create an FTP account in FTP Management

Your main DirectAdmin username and password already work for FTP with access to the whole account. For anyone else, create a separate account limited to one folder.

Connect with FileZilla

FileZilla is free, runs on Windows, macOS and Linux, and is the client we see most often. Open Site Manager, add a new site and fill in the fields below. Use your domain as the host once its DNS points at your account; before that, use the server IP address from your welcome email.

Choose FTPS rather than plain FTP so your password and files are encrypted in transit. On first connection FileZilla shows the server certificate; if the name does not match your domain, compare it with the server hostname from your welcome email before trusting it. SFTP, which runs over SSH, is a separate protocol. If your workflow depends on SFTP, ask support whether it is enabled for your account before setting it up, since it is not part of a standard shared hosting login.

Troubleshooting uploads

• Connection times out: switch FileZilla to passive mode and check that your office firewall or mobile hotspot allows port 21.
• Login fails: use the full username@yourdomain.com form and confirm the account exists in FTP Management for the selected domain.
• Files upload but the site still shows the old version: you are probably in the wrong folder; confirm the path ends in public_html for the right domain.
• Upload stops with a disk quota error: check storage on the DirectAdmin dashboard, remove old backups from the backups folder, and clear the File Manager trash.
• A file shows as 0 bytes after upload: the transfer was interrupted; re-upload it, and for zip archives always compare the file size with the original.

Frequently asked questions