The file manager
Browse, upload, edit and restore your site's files in the dashboard, even on a phone. Uploads resume, edits keep 7 days of versions, deletes go to a trash.
Updated 17 Oct 20263 min read
Every site and app has a file manager in the dashboard, built by us. Open your app's or site's page and choose Files. It works on a phone too, over a slow connection.
What you can open
| Where | What you can do |
|---|---|
| Site folder of a WordPress or PHP site | Everything: read, upload, edit, delete |
Kept folder, like storage, of an app built from code | Read and write: these are its permanent folders, kept between deploys |
| Live code (read-only) of an app built from code | Look only: it's rebuilt from GitHub or your ZIP on every deploy, so change your code instead |
You only ever see your own folders. Paths that try to climb out, like ../, and links that point outside are refused.
Upload
Choose Upload, or Upload a folder, or drag files onto the list. Big files go in pieces, so a dropped connection carries on where it stopped. One file can be up to 2 GB.
Upload a ZIP and choose Extract here on it to unpack it where it is. Compress makes a ZIP or a tar.gz of the files you choose.
Edit
Choose a text file, then Edit. The editor colours PHP, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, JSON and .htaccess, and has search and replace. Text files up to 5 MB open here.
Saving checks that nobody changed the file since you opened it. If someone did, you choose whether to load theirs or keep yours.
Every save keeps the version before it for 7 days. Open Earlier versions to restore one in a click.
Everyday actions
Choose one or several files, then: Rename, Copy to…, Move to…, Download (a folder downloads as a ZIP), or Delete. New file and New folder make them in the folder you're in. Search finds files by name and inside text files.
The trash
A deleted file or folder goes to the Trash tab for 7 days. Restore puts it back where it was. After 7 days, it's gone for good.
Who can change a file
Permissions are shown in words, not numbers:
| Choice | Means | Like |
|---|---|---|
| Only the site can change it | The standard choice | 644 for files, 755 for folders |
| Only the site can read it | For secrets such as wp-config.php | 600 |
| Anyone can change it | Unsafe | 777 |
Choosing Anyone can change it asks you to confirm, and is noted in the activity.
Example: Asha fixes a redirect
Asha's PHP site orders sends visitors in a loop after she moved it. On her phone, she opens the site's Files, chooses .htaccess, then Edit, and removes an old RewriteRule for her previous host's address. She saves; the site picks it up at once. A minute later she sees she removed one line too many, opens Earlier versions and restores the one before. The site is right again.
What's recorded
Every change is in the activity log: uploads, saves, renames, moves, deletes, restores and permission changes, with who made them. Looking at files isn't recorded. A site's page also lists its Recently changed files.
The file manager or the terminal?
Use the file manager for files: uploads, edits, restoring. Use the terminal to run commands, like php artisan migrate:status.