FileZilla Tips and FAQs
You will find several other FileZilla tutorials on this site. We’ve covered issues such as installing FileZilla, using FileZilla, setting default directories and showing hidden files. In this post we will cover several other tips and tricks issues that you may not have figured out thus far.
If you have a specific question regarding how to do something with FileZilla, post your question as a comment below and if we have a solution we will include the answer on either this tips page or in a seperate tutorial.
Where do I find the FileZilla download page?
You can find the most current version at the SourceForge FileZilla download page. If you don’t know which version to select, check out the link to our FileZilla installation page listed above.
How do I set chmod file and directory permissions with FileZilla?
First, you need to understand that chmod is a Unix and Linux command to set file permissions. It won’t work if your web site is on a Microsoft server. Permission are set to control access to files and directories. Be careful how you set permissions because incorrect permissions can open up security issues with your web site. If you need to set permissions for a file or directory, you probably are following instructions that tell you which permissions need to be set. Don’t get creative and make it too easy for someone to break into your site. 
- open the connection to your web site
- find the file or directory that you want to change permissions for in the window on the right side of FileZilla
- Right click on the file or directory and select “File attributes …”
- click on the appropriate boxes to change the permissions
April 16th, 2008 at 6:30 am
Hi there - I’m trying to edit the owners and groups of some of my image files as they are set to nobody which is causing me problems !!! How can I do this in FZ. I too think Filezilla is ace and have spent a lot of time fathoming it out but managed yet to do this!!!
April 16th, 2008 at 7:16 am
Hi Graham
You cannot change owners with an FTP utility. You can only change the file permissions, such as read, write and execute (chmod).
The owner ‘nobody’ is commonly used when you have a program that creates a file. It ads a level of security because a site user cannot modify the file.
You will need root access to the server to change owners. If you do not have root access to your server, just ask your hosting company to make the changes. If you have root access, you can change owners using Apache’s chown command. If you do not know what root access means, then you will need to work through the techs at your hosting company.
May 16th, 2008 at 3:32 am
If the issue of files getting owner ‘nobody’ or ‘99′ are a frequent problem, some people have asked their hosting company to run a script e.g. every night to reset all file ownerships to your ftp account user. Not ideal but possibly the next best thing for people on shared hosting with no ssh / root access.
May 17th, 2008 at 7:18 am
Good tip, David.
Site owners should be aware that there may have been a reason for the file owner to be set to ‘nobody’ or ‘99′. The most common would be when permissions are set to 777 (full read, write, execute access) for a file name that might be easy for someone to figure out. These types of files are usually generated by other programs in the site.
I sometimes develop systems that periodically generate static menu files and web pages in order to cut down on database queries and thus speed up the site. With these systems, the only reason for setting the owner to ‘nobody’ or ‘99′ is to prevent malicious web users from being able to overwrite the files. It adds a level of security.
July 3rd, 2008 at 1:23 pm
I updated to FileZilla Version 3.01.11. When transferring files, the file dates are changed. For example, I transferred files (from left screen to right screen) on 7/2/2008 and the file in right screen shows the date as 11/20/2008. In the Toolbar under Transfer I have checked Preserve Time Stamps of Transferred Files. Doesn’t make a different.
When I log into FileZilla and connect I see information regarding the connection, and it contains the following:
Status: Calculating timezone offset of server…
Command: mtime “www”
Response: 1214932592
Status: Timezone offsets: Server: -12207332 seconds. Local: -18000 seconds. Difference: 12189332 seconds.
I don’t know what that means. How do I get the correct date for transferred files. Thanks.
July 4th, 2008 at 10:42 am
Hi Bernice
I have not yet found the time to install version 3 of FileZilla and test it. We are currently up to our earlobes in web development projects.
It looks like you found the right item in the Transfer menu to preserve the date. If the timestamp was preserved or was accurate with a previous version of FileZilla, it could be a bug in the new version. I found the following in the FileZilla forums. Someone else is experiencing the same problem.
Filezilla and preserve local file time on uploadad files
I think the message means that your server’s date and time is way out of sych with your PC. The new date is probably coming from the server. Have your hosting company check it.
12189332 seconds equals a timestamp offset of 141 days or 4.7 months. That is just about right for a 11/20/2008 time stamp.
Check your server, but FileZilla should still preserve the local date when you opt to do that. Keep upgrading. It will probably get fixed in a future release.
July 7th, 2008 at 5:11 am
Thanks so much for your response. So nice to have someone out there in the great Internet world that responds so courteously and promptly.
October 14th, 2008 at 8:48 am
Hello,
My company gives clients the ability to upload some of their data to us via FTP (vague, I know). Once we see the file and process it, it is deleted. Is there a way for me to monitor the FTP site and copy or somehow preserve the client’s file using FileZilla before it gets deleted?
Thanks,
Dave
October 15th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
Hi Dave
I do not think that FileZilla will give you the answer to the problem unless you want to continually monitor the FTP directories on the server.
You didn’t say whether or not the file processing is automated, but it sounds like it is. My approach would be to modify the scripts that process the data and save a copy of the file before deleting it, or perhaps just move the file to a different location rather than deleting it.