Welcome to CuteFTP! We've got a lot of great tips for getting the most out of your FTP session, so leave Tip of the Day turned on for a while. NOTICE: From the Site Manager, click Import to restore your old FTP sites.
Having trouble logging into a site? Try using the Wizard located in the Site Manager. 99% of connection problems are due to an incorrectly entered, incorrect case or admin changed user name or password. If you are sure you have entered it correctly, then contact your FTP hosting service to verify it has not changed.
Press F4 to quickly access the Site Manager and Control + F4 to launch the Quick Connect Bar.
Repetitive tasks, such as updating HTML files, can be made easier by creating a Macro (Commands/Macros/Begin Recording from the menu bar).
If you get disconnected frequently from a site, try using the Smart Keep Alive feature under Settings. Also, you can press Control + R to reconnect quickly to the last session.
Want to browse a site while downloading? 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 extremely simple. Click Edit/Settings/Display in the menu bar to access the Display Options (including Sounds, Colors, Toolbar and Fonts).
Open CuteFTP, right-click on an FTP link in your Web Browser and select 'Copy to Clipboard' or 'Copy Shortcut' to begin downloading the file with CuteFTP. This can increase download speeds by as much as 30%.
You can "bookmark" both local and remote paths for easier access 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 its current process by hitting ESC or F9.
If you get an 'error opening data socket' or if your session hangs at the LIST command, go to the Edit menu and click on Edit/Settings/Connection/Firewall. Click (enable) the PASV Mode checkbox. Click OK and reconnect to the site.
In the MP3/File Searcher, Some MP3 sites are referred to as "ratio sites". These sites require you to upload a certain amount of bytes in exchange for "download credits". For instance, if a site had a 1:3 ratio, for every 1 byte that you upload, you are able to download 3 bytes.
In the MP3/File Searcher, once you have obtained a large list of results, use the right-click "Find" command to look for specific words within those results. That combined with the "Mark All" command can provide a powerful way to narrow down the results to what you want.
In the MP3/File Searcher, once you have narrowed down the results, use the "Smart Get" command. CuteFTP will then try to each site until it can get the file.
Previously unfinished transfers are stored in the queue. If CuteFTP seems to not be transferring the correct file, delete all items from the queue and then try your transfer again.
Click Edit/Settings/Auto Renaming in the menu bar to let CuteFTP automatically rename uploaded files. Click 'Add' to add a new renaming scheme. In the 'Local' field, type the extension to change i.e. htm; in the 'remote' field, type the desired extension i.e. html.
Use Control + D on your keyboard as the shortcut to change directories in the local and remote windows.
You can compare the contents of a local and remote directory by using the "Compare Directory" command. Click on Commands/Directory/Compare Directories in the menu bar to do this.
If you computer is exposed to prying eyes, use the security feature in the Site Manager to encrypt your Site Manager database using a sophisticated encryption algorithm.
You can set filters in your site properties that will determine both what is displayed and what is uploaded. One thing this is useful for is when you want to upload an entire directory but only want a specific file type in that directory to be uploaded.
Does the login and directory message bother you? You can turn those and other prompts off in the Edit/Settings dialog. You can even have CuteFTP startup and connect to your site without seeing the Site Manager.
You can use CuteFTP's shell integration feature to transfer files to your FTP site from the Windows right-click shell menu (in Explore). This allows you to transfer files or directories without even launching the CuteFTP interface. You can add a site to the shell menu in the site settings dialog.
For consistency, you can have CuteFTP force all files to a particular case when uploading, by choosing that option from the site settings dialog.
You can move entire directories around 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 directories don't have permission for you to list the contents and yet you need a file from it. To get it, use the "Manual Get" command from the Transfer menu. Then type in the path and filename to proceed.
