Introduction

FTP (File Transfer Protocol) is one of the most convenient ways to upload, manage, and organize files on your web hosting server. Using FTP accounts, you or other users can connect to your hosting space through an FTP client (such as FileZilla) and securely transfer files between your computer and the server.

Plesk makes managing FTP accounts simple and straightforward. You can create new users, define their access directories, and control permissions directly from your control panel.

In this tutorial, we will guide you through the process of creating FTP accounts in Plesk.

Getting Started

Before you begin, please log in to your Plesk control panel. To do that, please enter your IP address, hostname, or domain name inside your web browser’s search bar and add “:8443” at the end. It should look something like: “https://yourdomain.com:8443”. 

By doing so, you will be prompted by a login form that requests your username and password.

After logging in with your username and password, Plesk will automatically display the “Websites & Domains” page, which will serve as the index page from where you can manage everything related to your websites and domains on Plesk. 

If that is not the case, please select the “Websites & Domains” option from the left side menu.

Accessing the FTP Accounts Section

Under the Websites & Domains section, you will see all the domains hosted in your account.  Please locate the domain for which you would like to create a new FTP account and expand its management settings by pressing the down arrow button at the far left side of the domain’s row.

Then, under the domain management options, please click on “FTP” icon.

Performing the action above will redirect you to a page displaying a list of all existing FTP accounts associated with that domain. The first thing you will see is the default email account created with each Plesk account creation. This email account is immutable and cannot be deleted. It also has access to the entire account’s file system.

Creating a New FTP Account

To add a new FTP account, please click on the  “+ Add an FTP Account” button. 

Upon doing that, you will be redirected to a new page, where you will need to type in the credentials and FTP account directory.

You will now see a form where you can define the details for the new account:

• FTP Account Name - Please enter the desired username for the FTP account.
• Home Directory - Please specify which directory the account should have access to.
• You can restrict the user to a specific folder (for example, /httpdocs/subsite) or allow access to the entire web space.
• Password - Please enter a strong password or use the Generate option to create one automatically.
• Confirm Password - Please re-enter the password to confirm.
  
  

Once you have entered all the required details, please click OK or Apply to create the FTP account.

Managing and Editing FTP Accounts

After the account is created, you will return to the FTP Access page, where your new user will now appear in the list.

From this section, you can:

• Edit the FTP account to change its password or home directory. To do that, you can press on the account itself to expand the page allowing you to perform these changes.
• Remove an account if it is no longer needed. To do so, please select the account using the checkbox on left side of the row and then click on the “Remove” button above the table section.
• View the login name and home directory for each FTP user.
  

Connecting via FTP

Once the new account has been created, you can connect to your hosting space using any standard FTP client, such as FileZilla, WinSCP, or Cyberduck.

When configuring your FTP client, please use the following details:

• Host: Please use your domain name (e.g., yourdomain.com or your server’s hostname/IP)
• Username: Please use the FTP account name you just created.
  Password: Please use the password you set for the account
• Port: Please use port 21 (default FTP port)

After connecting, you will be able to upload, download, and manage files within the directory assigned to that FTP account.

Conclusion

As you can see, creating FTP accounts in Plesk is a simple and efficient process. This feature allows you to securely delegate file access to different users or manage your website’s files through your preferred FTP client.

By defining separate FTP accounts for various users or projects, you can maintain better security and organization for your hosting environment.

We hope this tutorial was helpful, and we kindly encourage you to use the FTP Access feature in Plesk to streamline your website management.