The fastest way to put a whole website or a folder full of files on yInstant Access Internet Services hosting is to zip it on your computer, upload the ZIP file in cPanel, and extract it on the server. This guide shows you how to upload and extract a ZIP file in cPanel File Manager, and how to avoid the most common mistakes.
Why upload a ZIP instead of individual files?
- File Manager can't upload folders directly - but it can upload one ZIP that contains all your folders.
- One large file uploads faster and more reliably than hundreds of small ones.
- Your folder structure is kept exactly as it was on your computer.
Step 1: Create the ZIP file on your computer
- Windows: select the files or folder, right-click and choose Compress to ZIP file (on older versions, Send to > Compressed (zipped) folder).
- Mac: select the items, right-click (or Control-click) and choose Compress.
Tip: if you're uploading a website, zip the contents of the site folder (your index.html, images folder and so on), not the folder itself. Otherwise your site ends up one folder too deep, for example public_html/mysite/index.html instead of public_html/index.html.
Step 2: Upload the ZIP file
- In cPanel, go to Files > File Manager.
- Open the folder you want the files to end up in. For your main website, that's
public_html. - Click Upload in the toolbar. The upload page opens in a new tab and shows which folder you're uploading to.
- Drag the ZIP file onto the page, or click Select File and choose it.
- If a file with the same name already exists and you want to replace it, tick Overwrite existing files before uploading.
- Wait until the progress bar turns green and shows it's complete.
- Click the Go Back to link at the bottom of the page to return to File Manager.
Step 3: Extract the ZIP file
- In File Manager, click Reload if you don't see the new file yet.
- Click the ZIP file once to select it.
- Click Extract in the toolbar (or right-click the file and choose Extract).
- Check the folder path shown. It defaults to the folder the ZIP is in, which is usually what you want.
- Click Extract File(s).
- When the Extraction Results window appears, close it. Your files are now in place.
Once you've checked the site works, select the ZIP file and click Delete - it's no longer needed and it counts towards your disk space. Then click Empty Trash in the Trash view if you want the space back straight away.
File Manager can also extract .gz and .bz2 archives (including .tar.gz) the same way.
Troubleshooting
The upload stops or fails part-way
Very large files can time out in a browser, especially on a slow connection. Split the upload into a few smaller ZIP files, or use an FTP program such as FileZilla, which can resume interrupted transfers - see How to Connect to Your Website with FileZilla (FTPS). Also check you have enough free disk space on the cPanel home page (see Understanding cPanel Statistics: Disk Space, Bandwidth and Databases).
Extracting overwrote my existing files
Extracting replaces files that have the same name in the destination folder. If you overwrote something by mistake, restore it from a backup - see How to Restore a File or Folder with JetBackup 5.
My site shows "Index of /" or a default page after uploading
Your files are probably in a subfolder. Open public_html and check whether index.html (or index.php) is directly inside it. If it's in a subfolder, select everything inside that subfolder, click Move and move it to /public_html. Also delete any old placeholder index.html if your site uses index.php.
Extract doesn't work on a .rar or .7z file
File Manager only extracts ZIP, GZip and BZip2 archives. Re-create the archive as a ZIP file on your computer and upload that instead.
I'm moving a WordPress site
Uploading files alone won't move a WordPress site - the database has to come too. WP Toolkit's import tool handles both; see How to Move a WordPress Site from Another Host (WP Toolkit Import).
Related guides
- How to Use cPanel File Manager to Manage Your Website Files
- How to Compress and Download a Folder in cPanel
- How to Connect to Your Website with FileZilla (FTPS)
- File and Folder Permissions Explained (644 and 755)
- How to Move a WordPress Site from Another Host (WP Toolkit Import)
Still stuck? Open a support ticket and the Instant Access Internet Services team will help.
