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This article describes how to use the cPanel File Manager to view and edit files directly on the web server.

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Viewing a file

You may not always need to edit a file. If you just want to take a quick look at a file’s contents, you can view it without opening an editor. To view a file in File Manager, follow these steps:
  1. Log in to cPanel.
    📘 Note If you do not know how to log in to your cPanel account, please see this article.
  2. On the Tools page, in the Files section, click File Manager:
    cPanel - File Manager icon (Jupiter theme)
  3. In the File Manager main window, click the file that you want to view.
  4. Click the View icon:
    cPanel - File Manager - View icon     The file’s contents appear in a new page.

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Editing a file

When you edit a file using cPanel’s File Manager, you can make immediate changes to your web site without the need to upload a new version of the file. You can use the File Manager editor to modify any kind of plain text file, including:
  • Configuration files.
  • HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files.
To do this, follow these steps:
  1. Log in to cPanel.
    📘 Note If you do not know how to log in to your cPanel account, please see this article.
  2. On the Tools page, in the Files section, click File Manager:
    cPanel - File Manager icon (Jupiter theme)
  3. In the File Manager main window, click the file that you want to edit.
  4. Click the Edit icon:
    cPanel - File Manager - Edit icon
  5. Select the character set encoding that the file uses. The default is utf-8 (Unicode).
    🚧 Important Make sure that you select the correct character encoding for the file. Otherwise, the file may become corrupted.
  6. Click Edit. The file’s contents appear in a new page, ready for editing.
  7. To save your changes, click Save Changes.
    👍 Tip If you do not want to save your changes, just close the page.
  8. To close the editor, click Close.