How to Upload Your Website in cPanel – Part I: Files and Folders

You’ve just purchased a hosting package from NameHero. Now what? In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to upload your website in cPanel after downloading it from your old host. Here, I’m going to focus only on the files and folders of your website, not the database. For database migration, read the other tutorials on this site.

Step 1: Find the Directory of your Site in the Old cPanel

The first step is to get your website out of your older servers. If you’re using something like WordPress, it could be easier to use a migration plugin. That would migrate your databases as well. But if you don’t use WordPress or another CMS with an easy migration option, then this guide is for you.

First, log into your older cPanel account and click the “File Manager” icon under “files”.

This will now ask you which directory you want to start in. If you see your website directory in the list, select it and go from there. If you don’t, start in the root folder. Most hosting sites have a folder called “public_html” in which your server keeps all website files. Double click this directory and browse around till you find the folder that contains your site.

In the example below, my site is located in the “blog” folder of public_html:

Double click the folder and enter into it to view your site files. Now it’s time to download everything here.

Step 2: Compress and Download all the Files

Website folders can contain thousands of files. Downloading them all individually or even in bulk via FTP is too slow. To upload your website in cPanel, we’re going to compress everything inside the folder into a single file and then download it.

To do this, click the “Select All” checkbox at the top as shown here:

This will select all the files. Now right-click anywhere inside the selection, and choose “Compress” from the drop-down box. Now you’ll get a dialogue box asking you to confirm the compression. By default, the compressed file will be placed in the existing directory:

Press “Compress File(s)” after choosing the “zip” option, and this will compress everything into a single “zip” file. After the compression is over, select the zipped file, right-click it, and choose “Download”. This will download the compressed file on your computer like this:

Now let’s re-create the new site in cPanel.

Step 3: Creating the New Site Folder in NameHero

Log into your NameHero cPanel account and follow the same steps as before like clicking “File Manager” and entering “public_html”. Now create a new directory where you want your site to live by clicking the “+Folder” sign:

Now it’ll ask you for your folder name, as well as the location. Make sure that it’s inside “public_html” otherwise your site won’t be accessible to anyone!

This will create the folder in your desired location.

Step 4: Upload the Compressed File and Extract it

Double-click the new folder and enter into it. Now click “Upload” at the top of the window as shown here:

This will show you a new window with a “Select” button. Click it, and in the resulting file dialogue box, select the compressed zip file you created in step 2. This will upload your website in cPanel. It may take a while depending on the size of your site:

Once the green progress bar has finished, you can click to go back. You might be puzzled to see that the file hasn’t yet appeared in the folder, but that’s because the view hasn’t refreshed. Just click the blue “Reload” link at the top and your compressed file will now appear!

As shown above, right-click the folder and select “Extract”. This will ask you for a confirmation of the location. Make sure that you’re extracting everything into the right folder and click “Extract File(s)”. Once that’s done, it’ll show you a list of files compressed.

Like before, Reload the interface and all your new files will have appeared in the new folder. This is how you upload your website in cPanel. Part-II will focus on the database.