Recently, we advised a user to delete .htaccess file from their site to solve a common WordPress error. The user was unable to find their .htaccess file and thought that there was something wrong with his website. For beginners, things like this can be very confusing. In this article, we will show why you can’t find .htaccess file on your WordPress site, and how to create one when needed.
What is .htaccess file?
.htaccess file is a server configuration file which tells your server how to handle certain things on your website. Like how to redirect users, password protect admin area, or protect some directories, etc.
The dot before the file name indicates that it is a hidden file. When you are accessing your web server through FTP, you will not be able to see .htaccess file unless your FTP client is forced to show hidden files.
Sometimes even when you have forced your FTP client to show hidden files, it will still not show you .htaccess file.
Why You Can’t Find .htaccess File?
The most common reason for this is that your WordPress site has not generated a .htaccess file yet. WordPress generates .htaccess file for the first time when you set up pretty permalinks on Settings » Permalinks screen. All you need to do is to click on Save Changes button on the permalinks screen and WordPress will generate a .htaccess file in your site’s root directory.
On some rare occasion, WordPress may not be able to generate a .htaccess file for your website due to file permissions issue. In that case, WordPress will show you a notice at the bottom of the Settings » Permalinks screen, informing you that .htaccess file is not writable. If you have setup permalinks to use any other settings than default, then it will also show you the code you need to paste in your .htaccess file.
You will need to copy and paste this code in a text editor like Notepad. After that you need to save it as .htaccess file on your desktop. Now connect to your website using an FTP client and upload .htaccess file from your desktop.
If you get an error while uploading the file, then you need to change the file permission for your root directory. Let’s suppose all your WordPress files reside under /home/syedbalkhi/public_html/ directory.
This makes public_html folder your root directory. You need to go to its parent directory and right click on the public_html folder. Select File Permissions, which will open a file permissions dialog box. You need to enter 755 into the file permission dialog box and then try to upload your .htaccess file to public_html folder.
We hope this article helped you find or generate .htaccess file on your WordPress site. If you are just starting out with WordPress don’t forget to check out Beginners Guides section, it has tutorials specifically written for new WordPress users. Let us know if you have any more questions or feedback in your comments below.
hey there,
I followed the instructions step by step, however I still cannot find the .htaccess -.-
when I create one on my mac with text pad (or should I use word doc?) and try to paste it via ftp (filezilla) in the ” / ” folder but it still does’nt work.
The links on my wordpress shows “404 Not Found nginx”
please help!!
You may want to ensure you don’t have a file extension on the end of your .htaccess file as that is one of the more common reasons it does not work.
Go in WordPress and then click on settings and then select permalinks and then select plain and then save changes
hey . i need your help regarding my cpanel . it shows only text and when i click on any tool it gets logged out. i have tried many ways to repair my cpanel but can’t resolved it . i m using cloudflare though.
Hi Abhishek,
Please contact your hosting provider. They will be able to fix this issue for you.
This probably worked once, but no longer. No message appears on the Permalinks page when you save it. Show Hidden Files in FileZilla doesn’t reveal the .htaccess file. Pretty much useless from the get-go.
Hi Don,
It still works. .htaccess file is hidden by default. If you cannot see it in your FTP client, then please try a different FTP program.
Very weird! Please help. I did find my .htaccess file and copied and pasted the code into it. Now all pages are secure except the home page. Any help would be appreciated.
thanks,
Ted
I have the same problem.
I have the same problem. No .htaccess using CuteFTP (yes, I enabled filters) and the file manager in Plesk. Does this mean there isn’t one??? Please answer!!!
Hi Carolina,
If your web hosting server is using a different software like Windows or Nginx then you may not be able ot find .htaccess file.
It helps a lot .. Thanks .. i can access again my website .
The htaccess rewrite worked! Thanks ever so much for your help. Brain is fried after a complete loss of dashboard today. I had to create a .htaccess file and upload it through ftp.
Thanks again
OMG thank you. I added this to my .htaccess file
php_value upload_max_filesize 64M
php_value post_max_size 64M
php_value max_execution_time 300
php_value max_input_time 300
FTP wouldn’t let me overwrite .htaccess so I uploaded it as .htaccess-new then deleted .htaccess and renamed .htaccess-new to .htaccess
Yay!
Hello,
I am unable to select any of the code in the box to recreate my .htaccess file. It appears to be an image file only…
Thanks.
Thank you! You saved my day, I started to get worried I will not fix this. I appreciate it, honestly.
Can you please tell me how to keep WP back end log in longer time when i am on back end for uploading? because due to SSL, it automatically logs out of the account in some minutes and ask me to log in again. this is troublesome, thank you
I have the same problem! did you find a solution?
please help.
thanks
The permalinks solution didn’t work for me either.
In cPanel I have a page that will allow me to edit 403 (forbidden) but when I click on the code to edit I’m absolutely lost which is very annoying as I’m sure it must be easy to do, if only I knew how!
Can anyone explain please?
Sincerely
Kay
Hi!
I am new to wordpress and have set up my wordpress site this weekend. To ensure it is safe, I followed the htaccess/htpasswd settings today and all worked fine.
After some hours, I could not access my wordpress site anymore but get the error message
[Tue Nov 01 20:31:36 2016] [authn_file:error] [pid 26428] [client xxx.xxx.xx.xxx] [host xxx.xxx.de] AH01620: Could not open password file: /XXX.htpasswd
How can I overcome this issue?
thanks for any help!
Axel
Please contact your hosting provider. They will be able to assist you better. Meanwhile, you can try steps mentioned in our WordPress troubleshooting guide.
You have a wonderful page. My only objection is that font sizes are too samall. I print everything I read
Why don’t you just zoom your browser window in to make the text larger?
i don’t want to use ftp client method. Tell me how to edit htaccess file via cpanel
thanks
it’s salve me
Thanks it really helped.
Keep sharing more wisdom.!
Really interesting and informative post. I like all posts of wpbeginner.com. nice website.
Hey.. I played around with WP rocket and cleared my .htaccess – Now i am missing elements and sections of my webpage. I have tired to disable minifying. But still nothing happens.
Really i have no idea of what made these sections disappear . Any one have an idea of what i should try?
Is there any way or some how I can make my audio wp content downloading be available to all mobile device,like if I just upload audio to W-P it is only some specific device that would be able to download it with streaming online.like I need help on how to make my audio link download on all mobile device.
Having tried the above I still can’t see my htacess file and I do not get the message saying not rewritable under permalinks. Can anybody help, I’ve been getting the 500 Internal Server Error for two days now and am desperate to update to the latest version of WordPress. My site is slow and shows the message frequently. Any help would be gratefully appreciated.
WP Maximum Execution Time Exceeded.
give it a try.
its working now i get relief.
thanks for your help.
i really appreciate your work.
thanks thanks thanks!!!
Thank you! You wake me up from the death!
Solved: Yesterday I started my second wp site, all went well until I noticed that all permalink options didn`t work except the default one, every time I changed to another permalink structure, I received the famous 404 error. I cross referanced with my first wp site, and noticed that the web.config file was not in the root. Obviously I copied and pasted the web.config file from my first site to my new site, refreshed and now all permalinks work fine.
dear can we use .htaccess Plugin by aubrey poortwood, is it bettter or not
thanks for this! Just ran into this and this helped me solve my issue.
Thanks you so much Balkhi, Your information is brilliant Boss. Thanks again.
It’s worth pointing out that your .htaccess file might be missing because you don’t need one. For instance the Nginx web server doesn’t use .htaccess files for security and performance reasons.
Hope you do not intended to leave permission at 755 for the file or anyone would be able to hack your site via that file no ?
755 is safe, 777 will make your files writable by anyone.
I had occasion to look around for some redirection plugins for WP, and I noticed that some implement “hit counters.” I suspect all of them have to put something in the .htaccess file. I would love to see an article that goes into more depth on redirection, link cloaking, and hit counters.
Isnt it easier co create .htacces right in cPanel (if you dont have it) rather than saving in notepad and uploading via ftp?
I think that way is more easier and faster.
Kasa yes this should work too, however many users don’t have access to cPanel. Some webhosts use their own hosting control panels.