Viewing and editing files in cPanel's File Manager

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

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.

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   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:
   

3. In the File Manager main window, click the file that you want to view.

4. Click the View icon:
   

   The file's contents appear in a new page.

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:
   

3. In the File Manager main window, click the file that you want to edit.

4. Click the Edit icon:
   

5. Select the character set encoding that the file uses. The default is utf-8 (Unicode).

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   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.

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   Tip

   If you do not want to save your changes, just close the page.

8. To close the editor, click Close.

Related articles

• Getting started with File Manager

• Uploading and downloading files in File Manager

• Configuring file permissions in File Manager