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
Graham Says:
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!!!
TE Says:
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.
david Says:
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.
TE Says:
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.
Bernice Says:
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.
TE Says:
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.
Bernice Says:
Thanks so much for your response. So nice to have someone out there in the great Internet world that responds so courteously and promptly.
Dave C Says:
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
Doogie Says:
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.
pam Says:
I have all of my files permissions set for owner, group, & public to read
owner and group to write
NOW IAM “forbidden to access the website on this server lol Port80″
Where should my permissions be set? And once they are, will my files in Filezilla be moved to the website?
Thanks for the information, or info on where to look. I really would like a step by step program for beginners using Filezilla… is there such a thing?
Doogie Says:
Hi Pam
Your first mistake was changing the permissions. The server sets up default permissions for each type of file as you copy them to the server. You do not need to change permissions except when you have a special situation that requires different permissions, such as when you want to secure a configuration file or you have a file that needs to be modified by another script.
At a minimum, the public permissions need to be set to 4, otherwise no one can view your pages and images. You do not need write permissions for public or group. That could allow hackers to replace your files.
The default permissions typically are:
644 – images
644 – html scripts
755 – directories
Naomi C. Says:
Hi,how do you change multiple file permissions,ctrl is not good enough for lots of files. PLEASE HELP! please and thank you
Doogie Says:
Hi Naomi
You can change file permissions for all the files in a directory by changing the directory level permissions. It is common to use 666 or 777 for permissions for a directory with cache files that are created on the fly, or a directory used to create backup files. However, it does create potential security risks, particularly if hackers can view the contents of the directories.
The real questions is, why would you want to change permissions for large numbers of files? The default permissions are intended to protect your web site. Be careful what you do when changing file permissions, because you can open the doors to hackers if you are not careful.
Judy Breuker Says:
First – I am not versed in this at all. My employer is requesting I load FileZilla on my home computer so I can obtain medical records in a secure format. When I open it up, it looks like my files could be access by their computer. It shows my various drives (C,D,E,F). I think what I am asking is, when I am connecting to their files, can they connect to mine?
Thank you in advance.
Chandrakala Says:
Hi,
After uploading the files to client server, I am not able to execute mutiple files at a at time on client server.
Is there anything wrong with settings in FILEZilla?
Please reply
Doogie Says:
Hi Chandrakala
I’m not sure what you mean by not being able to execute multiple files at a time, but that is a server issue, not a FireZilla issue. You might want to check to see if the client server is capable of executing PHP or whatever scripting language you using. Also, check the permissions on the scripts. In additon, make sure that the paths to your files are correct.
These are server and scripting issues, not FileZilla issues.
Kara Says:
Doogie,
Thank you for helping so many people with Filezilla!
I am currently trying to connect to my host site. I have all of the log in information. I have double checked the info with my webmaster. I followed his instructions to the T, and he has no alternative for me to try. The program goes through all the motions and then reports my password is incorrect. I know that another computer in my office used the exact same information and was able to connect. They have not changed the password.
Do you have any advice?
Thank you so much,
~ Kara
Doogie Says:
Hi Kara
Is it telling you that the password is incorrect, or “Could not connect to the server”? The “Could not connect…” message doesn’t specifically mean that your password is incorrect.
Check again to make sure that everything is correct with your login information. Upper and lower case characters do matter. Sometimes it is hard to tell the difference between and 1 and a lower case L, or a zero and an upper case O.
Check with your office IT support people to see if they are blocking FTP access from some office computers. Many companies do that these days. Your company could have a firewall (most smart companies do), which may require special access settings.
If you are using FileZilla 3, try using the Network Configuration Wizard found under the Edit menu. It can help troubleshoot connection problems.
There are lots of issues that could block the access to your web site.
You might want to try calling tech support at your hosting company. If that was the webmaster you talked to, you might have talked to a rookie. A lot of the tech support people that answer the phones at hosting companies do not really know much about servers–and they typically always blame the problem on something other than their systems–or their lack of knowledge. If you do not get a good answer, try escalating it to a tech who works with the servers.
Cassandra Rae Says:
I’m looking to move files from a sub-directory to the root directory using Filezilla so that my blog url will be my domain name and not domain/blog. I’m running into issues because I’m not going from local to server or vice versa. I want to transfer files from server to server. Is this even possible?
Thanks!
Doogie Says:
Hi Cassandra
The easiest way to do this is to transfer the files to your PC from the first server and then transfer them to the new server. If you are moving to a different server, you will also have to transfer the database.
Be aware that you may have some configuration issues in your blog. You may need to set the new default URL before you backup and transfer the database.
Bis Says:
Hi when I look at the Owner/Group column of the remote server I am connected to on Filezilla it displays Apache codes like 48 48 or 503 48. How can I translate the codes to understand what the mean (eg: I understand 99 99 means “nobody”)?
Thanks
Doogie Says:
Hi Bis
I had to dig to find out where the codes originated, but there isn’t very much info. It appears that it may be related to the type of FTP daemon used on your server. Personally, I would also like to see the name of the owner and group, rather than a code, but it doesn’t look like it is something that you can configure in FireZilla. Even if you could change the display, you cannot change file ownerships with an FTP utility.
http://forum.filezilla-project.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=10159&start=15
Hawi Says:
Hi. I am trying to use filezilla to do incremental backups of my entire site. IE: I just want to copy any remote files which have been changed, – into my local directory so that I have my entire site on my local machine.
Can this be done?
Doogie Says:
Hi Hawi
I don’t know of a way to do that. FileZilla is a file transfer utility, not a backup utility. A backup utility will clear the archive bit on a file when it makes a backup. When the file is changed, the bit is set again, so it is easy to detect for incremental backups.
It might be possible to do this from a command line, but it looks like the command line was removed in FireZilla 3.x.
http://wiki.filezilla-project.org/Talk:Command-line_arguments_%28Client%29
This would be a nice feature. Does anyone know how to do this?
Stevens Says:
Look for a program called FTPSync. Freeware that will do just what you are looking for.