If you own a WordPress Blog or website you will at some stage have a need to either download, delete or upload files to your website via FTP or File Transfer Protocol to give it its full name. FTP is software that will allow you to transfer files to and from your computer and your web server.
There are many types of FTP software available, some are free and some are premium, some work with all platforms, i.e; all versions of Windows and Mac and some are just specific to operating systems. FileZilla is a free, open source FTP software client, that is compatible on all platforms and one that I have found very easy to understand and use.
FTP will allow you to access all the folders and files on your web server without you going to the file manager via your C-Panel from within your web browser, for instance, if you want to remove a complete folder you can do this more easily via FTP software, this will save you having to log in to your C-Panel and then going to the file manager in your web browser.
If you want to make changes to your style sheet in the editor you can first of all, via FTP download a copy of the style sheet and keep it on your desktop PC just in case the changes that you make do not work. If after you have changed some of the code on your stylesheet and your website becomes messed up, you then just simply remove the edited stylesheet, upload the original stylesheet to its original location and your site should appear back as normal.
Some premium themes require that you upload them to your web server via FTP and also require some changes to be made to the attributes to some files within your website’s folders, this can be achieved easily with the help of FTP. Also if you want to remove a plug-in completely, maybe because it is not working properly, you can do this easily with FTP software.
WordPress comes with at least two standard themes that you may want to remove, especially if you have purchased a premium one, and let’s face it, you will only want your premium theme on your site, you can remove the unwanted themes folders and files completely thus saving you disc space on your server.
Uploading images becomes easy with FTP software as you can navigate to the image on your PC’s hard disc and then transfer the image to the destination folder on your web server right from your desktop, you can also make changes to file names and extensions in order to make them work properly.
