Welcome to CuteFTP! We have a lot of great tips that will help you get the most out of your FTP sessions, so leave Tip of the Day turned on for a while.
Are you having trouble logging into a site? Ninety-nine percent of all connection problems are due to password errors. Make sure that your password is in the correct case. If you are sure you have entered your password correctly, contact the FTP site's host. The site administrator may have changed your password.
You can press F4 to quickly access the Site Manager and Control + F4 to launch the Quick Connect Bar.
You can create a macro to simplify repetitive tasks, like updating HTML files. To create a macro, go to Commands > Macros > Begin Recording.
If you are frequently disconnected from a site, try using the Smart Keep Alive feature. On the menu bar, go to Edit > Settings > Connection > Smart Keep Alive. As an alternative, you can press Control + R to reconnect quickly to the last session.
Browsing a site while you're downloading is easy. Select Commands > Session > Spawn Session from the menu bar to start a new session of CuteFTP connected to the same FTP site.
Customizing the appearance of CuteFTP is simple. Click Edit > Settings > Display in the menu bar to access the Display Options (including Sounds, Colors, Fonts and the Toolbar).
It's easy to revisit old paths. "Bookmark" both local and remote paths by selecting Add from the Bookmark menu. These bookmarks are then available from that menu or from the Site Manager.
You can save queued transfers to a file and have them transferred at any time you wish using CuteFTP's internal transfer scheduler.
You can stop CuteFTP from connecting or transferring by clicking ESC or F9.
If you get an "error opening data socket" or if your session hangs at the LIST command, go to Edit on the menu bar and click Edit > Settings > Connection > Firewall. Enable (check) the PASV Mode checkbox. Click OK and reconnect to the site.
In the File Finder, some MP3 sites are referred to as "ratio sites". These sites require you to upload a certain number of bytes in exchange for "download credits". For instance, if a site has a 1:3 ratio, for every 1 byte that you upload, you are able to download 3 bytes.
In the File Finder, once you have obtained a large list of results, use the right-click "Find" command to look for specific words within those results. Use the powerful "Find" and "Mark All" commands to quickly narrow the results to the files you want.
In the File Finder, once you have narrowed the results to files you want, use the "Smart Get" command. CuteFTP will then try each site until it can get the file.
Previously unfinished transfers are stored in the queue. If CuteFTP doesn't seem to be transferring the correct file, delete all items from the queue and try your transfer again.
You can configure CuteFTP to automatically rename files and file extensions. Just click Edit > Settings > Auto Renaming in the menu bar and configure CuteFTP to automatically rename uploaded files.
You can change directories in the local and remote windows by clicking Control + D on your keyboard.
You can compare the contents of local and remote folders by using the "Compare Directory" command. Click Commands > Directory > Compare directories.
If your computer is exposed to prying eyes, use the security feature in the Site Manager to encrypt your Site Manager database with a sophisticated encryption algorithm.
You can set filters in your site properties that will determine both what is displayed and what is uploaded. This is useful when you want to make sure that you get all of a particular file type in a large directory. You can select the entire directory to be uploaded but have CuteFTP only upload the specific file type you want.
If the login, directory messages and other prompts bother you, you can turn them off at Edit > Settings.
You can transfer files or directories without even launching the CuteFTP interface. CuteFTP's shell integration feature lets you transfer files to your FTP site from Windows Explorer by right-clicking on the file(s) you want to transfer. To add a new site to the shell menu, just edit its properties in the Site Manager.
For consistency, you can have CuteFTP force all files into a particular case when uploading. Just edit the site in the Site Manager. On the Advanced tab, configure the site to force uppercase, force lowercase or preserve the case of the files.
You can move folders on your FTP server by using the Move command, located under Commands > File Actions.
You can transfer files from one FTP site to another without downloading them to your system. To do this, spawn the current session, then drag-and-drop files from one remote pane to the other.
Sometimes a folder on an FTP site doesn't have permission for you to list its contents even though you know you have permission to download a particular file in the folder. To get the file, use the "Manual Get" command from the Transfer menu. Then type the path and filename to proceed.
