Last updated on June 26th, 2022 at 11:41 am
Connecting to your WordPress site through FTP is a really cool feature that most of the hosting companies provide. No matter whether your hosting account is on Linux or Windows, there should be a way to connect to it via FTP. In most of the cases the username and password for the FTP connection are the same as the username and password for the cPanel.
To connect to your WordPress site via FTP, do the following:
Note: The first 3 steps are optional and you can skip them if you already know your cPanel username and password. Have in mind that the cPanel username and password are different from the username and password for your hosting account. If you’re not sure, just start with the first step.
1. Log in to your hosting account.
2. Find the area where you can change your cPanel password.
3. Change the cPanel password and make note of your cPanel username. You will use them to connect to your hosting account through FTP.
4. Open your preferred FTP client such as FileZilla.
5. Once FileZilla opens, enter your hosting server’s IP address in the Host box. Then enter the cPanel username and the cPanel password in both fields called Username and Password.
6. You may leave the Port box empty or use the default FTP port which is 21.
7. Click on the Quickonnect button.
8. Once connected, locate the Remote site section of FileZilla. You will see your hosting account’s files and folders there.
9. To find the files for your WordPress site, click on the public_html folder and navigate to the installation folder of the site. Usually, the path is similar to the following:
public_html/yoursite.com
Congrats! You’ve successfully connected to your hosting account via FTP.
Many users have troubles with connecting to their hosting account via FTP. There are many different reasons for being unable to connect to your host via FTP. Let’s have a look at the most common scenarios for FTP connectivity issues.
Unable to connect to FTP due to 530 login authentication failed
If you receive the ‘530 login authentication failed’ error this means that there’s something wrong with your FTP login credentials.
Let’s not confuse the master FTP login credentials with the actual username and password for the hosting account. In fact, the master FTP username and FTP password are usually the same as the cPanel username and cPanel password.
Note that the cPanel username and the cPanel password aren’t the same as the username and password that you use for logging in to your hosting account customer area.
If you want to connect to your WordPress site via FTP, make sure that you know your cPanel username and password so you can use them for the FTP connection.
Unable to connect to FTP due to Connection refused by server – ECONNREFUSED
When you get a message that your FTP connection is refused by the server, this means that most probably your IP address has been blocked. Usually, this happens when you try to connect many times with incorrect login details. If you’re in a similar situation, you should try the following workarounds.
1. Contact your hosting provider.
They should be able to unblock your IP from their internal firewall. Most of the hosts such as InMotion and Bluehost have online support agents that could resolve the issue and unblock the IP in a few minutes. However, if you’re on GoDaddy hosting account, the online support may not be available, so making a call or just wait so that the IP gets unblocked automatically can do the trick.
2. Change your IP.
As your actual IP address is blocked by the host, the easiest solution would be to just change your IP by simply changing your internet connection. For instance, you can tether your smartphone’s internet connection and connect your computer from there.
