There is a way to work on your hosting files without opening any transfer program at all: mount the account as a folder on your computer. It opens in your file explorer, you drag things in, you open a document, you save, and the save goes straight to the server.
In cPanel this is called Web Disk and it is under Files. The standard behind it is WebDAV, which Windows, macOS and Linux all speak with nothing to install.
How it differs from FTP
| Point |
Web Disk |
FTP or SFTP |
| Where it shows up |
As a folder or a drive, in your system’s own file explorer. |
In a separate window belonging to a transfer program. |
| Editing one file |
Open, edit, save. The program handles the rest. |
Download, edit, upload again. Three steps and one chance to forget the third. |
| Many files at once |
Slow, and sometimes it stalls halfway. |
This is what it is built for, and it does it well. |
| Connecting |
Once, and it stays mounted across restarts. |
You open the program each time, or save the site details. |
| When to pick it |
Touching a few files, many times a day. |
Uploading a whole site, or syncing folders. |
The two live together happily. If you have set up neither yet, FTP accounts and connecting with FileZilla is the starting point, and SFTP instead of FTP explains which to use.
Mounting it, start to finish
| 1 |
Create a Web Disk account on its own page, with a password of its own. Do not reuse the cPanel one.
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| 2 |
Choose the folder that account can see, and choose narrowly. If the account is for swapping documents, point it at the documents folder and not at the root of your account.
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| 3 |
Choose the encrypted connection. Web Disk answers on two ports, and the tool offers you both: 2077 answers in the clear and 2078 answers encrypted. Always take the second. Some systems flatly refuse to mount an unencrypted one, and the systems that allow it should not: the account password travels with every request.
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| 4 |
Use the address the page shows you. Do not invent it from your website name: Web Disk has ports of its own, different from the website’s, and if they ever change it is the page that stays right, not what you memorised.
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| 5 |
Mount it on your system. The page offers configuration files that do this for you, per system. If you prefer it by hand, use your file explorer’s option to connect to a network folder and paste the address in.
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A Web Disk account rooted at the top sees everything. Including the config files holding your database passwords, and any backups you have stored. If you are handing this account to a supplier, an intern or an application, point it at one folder and only that one.
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Deleting on a mounted drive deletes on the server. It does not go to your computer’s recycle bin, because the file was never on your computer. And dragging a folder to the wrong place in a file explorer is easier than it sounds. Keep a copy: restoring a backup without opening a ticket.
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What usually goes wrong
| What you see |
What it is |
| The system refuses the connection and says nothing useful |
Nearly always the unencrypted connection being refused by your own system. Go back to the page and take the encrypted address, the one on 2078. |
| It asks for the password over and over |
The Web Disk account user is neither the cPanel user nor the FTP one. Check the page’s list for that account’s full name. |
| Copying many files takes forever |
That is the protocol, not your connection. For big batches use FTP or SFTP, or send one archive and unpack it on the server. |
| The folder opens but it is empty |
The account is pointed at a folder other than the one you have in mind. Check on the page which folder was chosen. |
| It stopped connecting overnight |
If the password failed several times, the firewall may have shut your address out: why the firewall blocks your IP. |
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One account per purpose, never one for everybody. One for the designer, pointed at the images folder; another for accounts, pointed at the documents. When somebody leaves you delete theirs and nothing else changes.
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If what you actually want is to keep a folder away from the public, that is not Web Disk: it is the Directory Privacy page, also under files, which puts a password in front of a folder of the website.
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Trying to mount the account as a folder and something will not fit? Tell us which system you are on.
Open a support ticket
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