Using FTP to update files on a server

I know the FTP username and password for a site we own and need to know how we can update some files on the server. It seems quite a small thing to do and I'd like to have a go at doing it myself.

A few years ago a friendly local guy help set up a website for my wife's floristry business. The site has a "contact us" page, and messages are forwarded to our home email address. We've now just changed our home email, and so I now need to reset the forwarding function on the website.

The helpful local guy seems to have moved away, or retired - there's no way I can find him now. I tried to get help on how to change the forwarding address from the hosting people, but they say they can't help me.

How do I go about updating the pages on the site? A step-by-step guide on how to do it would be great.


  1. Download the FileZilla Client.

  2. Open it and enter the host details in the top bar, the default port is 21 and can be left empty.

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  3. Browse in the right pane (that's online) to the folder your file is in.

  4. Right click on the file and choose Edit.

  5. When you're done, go to File and then Save and close your editor.

  6. Confirm that you want to upload the edited file in the dialog box that popped up.


Filezilla is a great free ftp program. See here for step by step guide.


If you're using Firefox, FireFTP is also well worth a look. It's an extension that will put a full-featured FTP client inside your browser (basic support for FTP is also built-in into Firefox)