Use the Plesk File Manager to upload, edit and manage files

The Plesk File Manager lets you work with your website files directly in the browser. You can upload a site, edit a configuration file, unpack an archive or fix permissions in a few clicks, without installing an FTP client. This guide covers the tasks you will use most often in Plesk Obsidian.

Before you start

• A Plesk login (customer, reseller or administrator) with access to the subscription.
• The domain already added to the subscription.
• For large uploads (over a few hundred MB), consider FTP or SSH instead, because browser uploads can time out.

Open the File Manager

1. Log in to Plesk.
2. Go to Websites & Domains and find your domain.
3. Click File Manager (or choose Files in the left menu).

You land in the subscription's home directory. The website content normally lives in httpdocs for the main domain. Additional domains and subdomains usually have their own folder, such as example.org, shown as the Document root under the domain's Hosting & DNS → Hosting settings.

Upload files and folders

1. Open the target folder, for example httpdocs.
2. Click the + (plus) button and choose Upload File or Upload Folder. You can also drag files from your computer into the file list.
3. Wait until the progress bar finishes before leaving the page.

To upload a whole website quickly, compress it into a ZIP on your computer, upload the single archive, then extract it on the server (see below). This is much faster than uploading thousands of small files.

Extract and create archives

• Extract: tick the archive, click the three-dot menu (⋯) next to it and choose Extract Files. Tick Replace existing files only if you want to overwrite.
• Compress: tick several files or folders and click Archive → Add to Archive. Plesk creates a ZIP you can download as a quick backup.

Edit a file

1. Click the three-dot menu next to the file.
2. Choose Edit in Code Editor for PHP, HTML, CSS, JavaScript or .htaccess files. It provides syntax highlighting and line numbers.
3. Use Edit in Text Editor for plain text, or Edit in HTML Editor for simple visual editing of HTML pages.
4. Click Save (or OK to save and close).

Move, copy, rename and delete

• Tick one or more items and use Copy, Move or Remove in the toolbar.
• Use the three-dot menu and Rename to change a name.
• Removed files go to the Plesk recycle bin only if your administrator enabled it; otherwise deletion is permanent, so double-check first.

Change permissions

1. Open the three-dot menu next to the file or folder and choose Change Permissions.
2. Set read, write and execute for owner, group and others.
3. Typical safe values are 644 for files and 755 for folders. Configuration files with passwords can use 600 or 640.

Never use 777. PHP on Plesk runs as the subscription's system user, so the owner already has write access and wider permissions only expose your site.

Search and view file details

Use the search box at the top of the list to find files by name in the current folder. Click the folder breadcrumb to jump back up. The size and modification date columns help you spot recently changed files, which is useful when investigating a hacked site.

Troubleshooting

• Upload fails or stops: the file may exceed the upload limit or the browser timed out. Upload a smaller ZIP or use FTP.
• Permission denied when saving: the file may be owned by root or another user. Ask your host to fix ownership, or check that you are inside your own subscription.
• Changes do not appear on the site: clear your browser cache, any caching plugin and, if enabled, Nginx caching under Hosting & DNS → Apache & nginx.
• Quota exceeded: check disk usage on the subscription overview and remove old backups or logs.

Next steps

• Create FTP accounts in Plesk for larger uploads.
• Adjust PHP settings in Plesk such as upload size and memory limit.
• Schedule backups with Plesk Backup Manager.
• Install and manage WordPress with WP Toolkit.