Transfer tooling · Beginner · 15 minutes
FileZilla: SFTP on 22, and the Failed-Transfers Tab
The transfer said it finished, the site is broken, and thirty files are sitting in a tab you have never opened.
The short answer
Connect over SFTP on port 22 using your hosting login: it rides the SSH service, encrypts credentials and payload together, and is available on every plan here. Plain FTP sends your password across the network in clear text and has no business being used in 2026.
Then treat the queue as the source of truth. FileZilla splits transfers into successful, queued and failed tabs, and a large job that reports itself finished can still have left files in the third one. A site missing thirty files looks broken in ways that have nothing to do with your code.
By the HostingFast team · Reviewed 12 August 2026
Beginner
Difficulty grade
5
Stages
Free
Support cost
Proven
Verified on
Fifteen minutes to configure once and never think about again. It assumes you have FileZilla installed and a hosting login.
The settings worth attention are not the obvious ones — protocol, concurrency and timeout decide whether a large transfer completes, and all three live in places people never open.
Pick the protocol on evidence, not habit
SFTP runs inside SSH on port 22: one encrypted channel, credentials and files both. FTPS is the older FTP protocol with TLS added — explicit on 21 with AUTH TLS, implicit on 990 — and it works, but it carries FTP's awkward separate data connection with it.
Plain FTP on 21 authenticates in clear text. Anyone on the network path reads your password. FileZilla offers all three in the protocol dropdown, which is why choosing deliberately matters: the default is not always the encrypted one.
Site Manager, and the settings that decide whether a big job finishes
File, then Site Manager, then a new site: protocol, host, port, logon type and user. Saving it removes the retyping and stops you accidentally reconnecting over plain FTP through quickconnect one day when you are in a hurry.
The Transfer Settings tab is the one nobody opens. Concurrent transfers default low, and raising them helps on many small files and hurts on a saturated line. The timeout matters more: a value that is too short kills long single-file transfers, and the failure looks like a server problem.
The queue is the source of truth
The bottom pane has three tabs. Queued files are pending, Successful transfers is the boring one, and Failed transfers is the one that decides whether your deployment worked. A connection blip drops individual files without stopping the job.
So the last action of every large transfer is to open the failed tab, select everything in it, and re-queue. Then compare a file count between local and remote. A site with thirty files missing produces errors that look like code faults and are not.
Scoped accounts, and when to leave FileZilla behind
cPanel's FTP Accounts page creates a login fenced to a single directory in about a minute. Give a contractor that instead of your hosting credential and they cannot reach anything outside the folder they are working in.
For anything you do more than twice, rsync over SSH transfers only what changed and verifies as it goes, and Git gives you a deployment with a rollback. SSH, Git and Composer are on the developer-focused plans, and that is the direction this job should eventually move in.
The platform these transfers were run against
Every protocol, port and setting here was exercised on the stack we operate: the same SSH service, the same FTP accounts screen, the same document roots. Nothing is inferred from another host.
Every plan ships with a free SSL certificate that renews itself ahead of expiry, so the padlock is never a thing you have to diary.
- Protocol chosen deliberately
- Ports and timeouts stated
- Failed queue read every time
- Engineers on shift at any hour
Why HostingFast
Standard on every plan
Protocol chosen on evidence
SFTP, FTPS and FTP compared by what each one does to your password on the wire.
Ports named
22 for SFTP, 21 with AUTH TLS for explicit FTPS, 990 for implicit — no guessing in the dropdown.
Transfer settings tuned
Concurrency, passive mode and timeouts are what decide whether a large job actually completes.
The queue as source of truth
Successful, queued and failed are three separate tabs, and only one of them carries bad news.
Scoped accounts for contractors
A per-project FTP login fenced to one directory, created in under a minute from the panel.
SSH on the developer plans
Where rsync and Git make more sense than a desktop client, both are already available to you.
Quick Start
From order to online
- 1
Create the connection as SFTP on port 22
Host sftp://yourdomain or the server hostname, port 22, your hosting login. Never leave the protocol on plain FTP because it was the default.
- 2
Save it in Site Manager
One saved entry with protocol, host and credentials. Reconnecting becomes a click, and you stop reaching for quickconnect and the wrong protocol.
- 3
Set concurrency and the timeout before a big job
Transfer Settings, not the main window. A short timeout kills long single-file uploads and reports it as a connection failure.
- 4
Transfer into the correct document root
public_html for the main domain, its own root for an addon or subdomain. The folder-to-URL mapping is identical to File Manager's.
- 5
Open the failed-transfers tab and re-queue
Every time, on every large job. Then compare file counts between the two panes — that is what confirms the deployment is complete.
Built In
Loaded onto every plan
- SSH, Git and Composer on the developer-focused plans
- cPanel — the panel most of the industry already automates against
- NVMe SSD storage on every tier, not just the expensive ones
- Daily backups with restores you trigger yourself from the panel
- Staging environments for testing before anything ships
- Engineers on shift every hour of every day, not a queue that opens at nine
- Renewal billed at the rate you first signed up at
- Money-back window: 30 days on hosting plans, 7 on reseller
- No setup fee on any plan, ever
- One-click installs for WordPress and 400+ other applications
Frequently Asked
What people ask us most often
SFTP, FTPS or FTP — which one, and on which port?
SFTP on port 22 wherever it is available, and it is available on every plan we sell: it runs inside SSH and encrypts credentials and data in one channel. FTPS is legacy FTP with TLS bolted on, explicit on 21 or implicit on 990. Plain FTP sends the password in clear text and should not be used at all.
Uploading thousands of small files crawls — what fixes it?
Per-file overhead, which no amount of bandwidth reduces. Two fixes: raise the concurrent transfer count in Site Manager's Transfer Settings, or stop transferring files individually — zip locally, upload one archive, extract on the server. For repeat deployments, rsync over SSH sends only what changed.
Which panel do accounts run, and does the tooling transfer?
cPanel — the panel most of the industry standardised on long ago. Every tutorial you find online will match your screen, your backups restore onto any other cPanel host, and the skills transfer for life. Plesk and DirectAdmin are available on specific plans if you prefer either.
Where does the hardware sit, and how much does location cost me?
Our platform runs from a London datacentre with redundant power, cooling and multiple upstream carriers, fronted by server-level caching that keeps cached pages fast for visitors worldwide. For most sites, how the platform is engineered — NVMe disks, LiteSpeed, restrained account density per machine — matters far more to speed than the location does.
Keep reading
How to Upload Files With File Manager
One archive instead of hundreds of uploads, and the folder-to-URL map confirmed.
How to Set Up MX Records
Inbound mail routed to the service that should handle it, TTL included.
FTP (Glossary)
The older transfer protocol and its successors, defined in one screen.
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