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WPBeginner» Blog» Plugins» How to Add a FTP like File Manager in Your WordPress Dashboard

How to Add a FTP like File Manager in Your WordPress Dashboard

Last updated on March 8th, 2019 by Editorial Staff
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How to Add a FTP like File Manager in Your WordPress Dashboard

Do you want to add an FTP like file manager in your WordPress admin area? A file manager can help you edit WordPress configuration, themes, plugins, and other files right from your WordPress dashboard. In this article, we will show you how to easily add an FTP like file manager in WordPress.

Adding an FTP like file manager in WordPress

Why You Need an FTP like File Manager in WordPress?

A file manager in WordPress allows you to manage files on your WordPress website directly from your WordPress admin area. It works like a web-based FTP client allowing you to browse and manage files with a simple user interface.

Our recommendation is to always use an FTP client using SSH or SFTP protocols to securely transfer WordPress files.

However, a file manager is helpful when you don’t have access to FTP or cPanel of your website. It works similar to an FTP client, so you can edit, preview, upload, and download the WordPress configuration and other files.

That being said, let’s take a look at how to easily add an FTP like file manager in WordPress.

Video Tutorial

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If you don’t want to watch the video tutorial, then you can continue reading the text version below:

Adding a FTP like File Manager in WordPress

First thing you need to do is to install and activate the File Manager plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, the plugin will add a new menu item labeled ‘WP File Manager’ in the WordPress admin sidebar. Clicking on it will launch the file manager app, which will show your WordPress files and folders.

WP File Manager

You can find the settings in the toolbar above the files section. This toolbar is similar to the settings in an FTP client. It allows you to preview, edit, upload, download, and delete files or folders.

Toolbar

You can select a file and choose the option in the toolbar to perform an action.

The folders will work the same way as they do in any modern FTP client. You can click on any folder to open and view its contents.

Edit plugin files

You can edit any file using the toolbar menu option. It’ll open the file in a popup, so you can make changes and save it.

Edit file manager

If you don’t want to make changes in the file, then you can click on the preview option to see the code.

You can access the media files in the wp-content » uploads folder. The ‘Upload Files’ option in the toolbar allows you to upload multiple images in 1-click. You can also upload zip files and extract them in the file manager.

Extract zip file

That’s all. We hope this article helped you learn how to add a FTP like file manager in WordPress. You may also want to see our guide on useful WordPress configuration tricks that you may not know.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

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26 Comments

Leave a Reply
  1. Prateek says:
    Oct 30, 2020 at 12:07 pm

    Upload folder is not opening in my file manager. Its keep on trying for a long and then shows below error:

    “Unable to connect to backend.
    Backend not found.
    HTTP error 404”

    How to resolve this isssue

    Reply
    • WPBeginner Support says:
      Nov 2, 2020 at 9:51 am

      You would want to reach out to the plugin’s support and they should be able to assist.

      Reply
  2. ajit says:
    Apr 27, 2020 at 10:33 am

    Can I access the file manager plugin from outside wordpress dashboard in case of not able to reach admin dashboard because of http https error? plz help

    Reply
    • WPBeginner Support says:
      Apr 28, 2020 at 1:20 pm

      No, you would not be able to use the plugin outside your WordPress site, for that you would want to use FTP or a file manager if your host has one.

      Reply
  3. Ashkan says:
    Feb 20, 2019 at 3:51 pm

    This plugin has been removed from WordPress and is no longer available. Can you please recommend another good FTIP like plugin_

    Reply
    • WPBeginner Support says:
      Feb 21, 2019 at 10:18 am

      Not at the moment but the plugin should still be available when visiting the link in our article :)

      Reply
  4. Rintesh Roy says:
    Nov 25, 2018 at 12:25 am

    Thanks a lot! This is what I was looking for.

    Reply
  5. Thinus says:
    Sep 21, 2017 at 8:09 am

    I would like my client do upload different files in to different directories. Is this possible?

    Reply
    • Sanket Bhardwaj says:
      Nov 25, 2018 at 10:31 am

      Yes, This is Possible. You Can do it with the Help of FTP Client Called Filezilla.

      Reply
  6. kathy says:
    Jan 21, 2016 at 3:46 pm

    Thanks for the plug-in. It works great to access individual files. Now I want to do some things in bulk. How can I download a folder with all of it’s files and sub-folder files? I am only seeing a download option on individual files and that would take forever.

    Reply
  7. WPBeginner Support says:
    Nov 18, 2015 at 3:38 pm

    You can drop a message for plugin author in the support tab of the plugin page.

    Reply
  8. Marcus Vinicius says:
    May 26, 2015 at 3:49 pm

    The best solution ever!!!

    Reply
  9. exzavia says:
    Apr 15, 2015 at 11:59 am

    I need major help. Well I have the plugin… and I uploaded a pdf to folder in which I want to see it displayed but when I log back into the site its not showing up to be viewed or printed like the other documents

    Reply
  10. jade says:
    Oct 8, 2013 at 8:54 am

    Can you use this to display files within folders to blog visitors – allowing them to download files?

    Reply
    • WPBeginner Support says:
      Oct 9, 2013 at 5:01 pm

      yes you can.

      Reply
      • rick says:
        Mar 3, 2014 at 10:09 am

        How?

        Reply
        • WPBeginner Support says:
          Mar 3, 2014 at 10:14 pm

          In the plugin’s admin panel there is a check box to allow downloads, please see the screenshot in the article.

  11. Anant Shrivastava says:
    May 20, 2013 at 3:55 pm

    Those who were facing issues are requested to try 1.4.0 version of the plugin that should solve all errors and issues.

    Reply
    • Andrei Goea says:
      Aug 9, 2013 at 4:51 pm

      Hi,

      Great plug-in.

      Om WordPress 3.6 I get quite a few errors:

      Notice: Undefined index: action in /home4/mediapo1/public_html/prportal/wp-content/plugins/wp-filemanager/wp-filemanager.php on line 65

      Notice: has_cap was called with an argument that is deprecated since version 2.0! Usage of user levels by plugins and themes is deprecated. Use roles and capabilities instead. in /home4/mediapo1/public_html/prportal/wp-includes/functions.php on line 2969

      Notice: has_cap was called with an argument that is deprecated since version 2.0! Usage of user levels by plugins and themes is deprecated. Use roles and capabilities instead. in /home4/mediapo1/public_html/prportal/wp-includes/functions.php on line 2969

      I am running on a multi-site installation.

      Also, how can I increase the upload file size to more than 256mb?

      Thank you.

      Reply
  12. anantshri says:
    Jun 4, 2012 at 2:14 am

    Hi All,
     
    thanks for taking time to review the plugin.
     
    I am the plugin author and i have recently updated the plugin to 1.3.0 lots of warnings and issues have been fixed as well as compatibility with advance access manager is resolved now.
     
    Please update your plugin to enjoy.

    Reply
  13. wimmm says:
    Nov 16, 2011 at 9:56 am

    I followed the instructions described here above, but get the message ‘Invalid home folder.’ above the file management screen. I left the filemanager default home location on ../

    Reply
  14. AdelRaouti says:
    Nov 4, 2011 at 5:41 am

    I couldn’t install it in multisite wp

    I had this message :

    Warning: require_once(../wp-config.php) [function.require-once]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/********/public_html/wp-content/plugins/wp-filemanager/fm.php on line 3 Fatal error: require_once() [function.require]: Failed opening required ‘../wp-config.php’ (include_path=’.:/usr/lib/php:/usr/local/lib/php’) in /home/*********/public_html/wp-content/plugins/wp-filemanager/fm.php on line 3

    Reply
  15. m.wijnberger says:
    Oct 24, 2011 at 10:29 pm

    would this option be available on the client-side or only on the admin (dashboard) page ?

    Reply
    • m.wijnberger says:
      Oct 24, 2011 at 10:31 pm

      i answered my own question just yet :-)

      —-

      from the plugin-page:

      WP-Filemanager is your one stop solution for all file management work right from the wordpress admin page.

      —-

      Reply
      • dinislambds says:
        Nov 26, 2018 at 10:51 am

        Thanks for the right reply. :)

        Reply
  16. mskai says:
    Oct 8, 2011 at 3:19 pm

    My problems with clients and ftp access are solved!

    Reply

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