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How do I find my website files with Filezilla?

I have ftp access set up with my web host, Dreamhost, and can see hundreds of files under my domain name, but can’t find any of the specific pages I have created with Upfront/Spirit. Can you direct me to the directory they will be in, or do I need some different ftp access now that I am using Spirit? Thanks.

Wed, 4 Feb 2015 14:54:27
  • Patrick Cohen
    • Technical Docs Wrangler

    Hi there @Megan Caine

    Welcome to WPMU DEV, glad to have you aboard!

    Unlike static HTML sites, WordPress does not create a specific file for each page or post you create on your site. The reason for that is because everything in WordPress is dynamically created on-the-fly as the browser requests data according to user input.

    PHP is the code used by WordPress to query your database for every action, and display the requested data on-screen using the appropriate theme template files.

    So you will have specific files for each theme page/post template, but each of those templates can be used by WordPress site to output multiple content types to the screen.

    All content on your WordPress site can be accessed in your wp-admin. But, as Upfront also enables you to access and edit that content from the front of your site too. Simply click the Posts/Pages/Comments link in the Upfront sidebar and a popup will appear where you can select the one you want to edit.

    I hope this helps! And thanks for being a member :slight_smile:

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  • Patrick Cohen
    • Technical Docs Wrangler

    Hi again @Megan Caine

    I hope you're well today!

    There is really no written-in-stone recommended way to proceed with WordPress backups. However, as a rule of thumb, full backups should be made on a regular basis.

    How regular is "regular"? That depends on several factors, not least of which is how often you update your content, how sensitive that content is, or if you run an active community portal.

    In an active community based on BuddyPress with hundreds, if not thousands, of members actively contributing to the site, nightly backups may be in order. Whereas a personal blog that sees new content once or twice or week could probably survive quite well in the wild with monthly, or even weekly, backups. :slight_smile:

    There are other options to consider as well, such as your level of expertise (and interest) in doing the grunt-work. If grunt-work is not your style, then a good backup/restore plugin might be a good option for you. Our blog is chock-full of great articles & reviews on the most popular (& maintained) plugins for that. For example:

    https://wpmudev.com/blog/premium-freemium-wordpress-backup-plugins/

    On the other hand, if you like full control over everything, and want to really dig into keeping your site up, no matter what, this post should be of interest to you:

    https://wpmudev.com/blog/creating-a-disaster-recovery-plan-for-your-wordpress-site/

    Then again, if all you really want to do right now is make a complete backup of your site to keep safe, it's really quite simple:

    – Make a full backup of all files on your server in your cPanel as seen in the 1st screenshot below.

    – Make a full SQL export of your database in phpMyAdmin (accessible in your cPanel homepage) as seen in the 2nd screenshot.

    You'll find tons more good information on the blog by simply searching for "backup" as in this search:

    https://wpmudev.com/blog/?s=backup

    I hope this helps too!

    :slight_smile:

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