---
title: "FTP"
description: "Rclone docs for FTP backend"
date: "2017-01-01"
---

<i class="fa fa-file"></i> FTP
------------------------------

FTP is the File Transfer Protocl. FTP support is provided using the
[github.com/jlaffaye/ftp](https://godoc.org/github.com/jlaffaye/ftp)
package.

Here is an example of making an FTP configuration.  First run

    rclone config

This will guide you through an interactive setup process. An FTP
backend only needs an URL and and username and password. With
anonymous FTP server you will need to use `anonymous` as username and
your email address as password.

```
No remotes found - make a new one
n) New remote
r) Rename remote
c) Copy remote
s) Set configuration password
q) Quit config
n/r/c/s/q> n
name> remote
Type of storage to configure.
Choose a number from below, or type in your own value
 1 / Amazon Drive
   \ "amazon cloud drive"
 2 / Amazon S3 (also Dreamhost, Ceph, Minio)
   \ "s3"
 3 / Backblaze B2
   \ "b2"
 4 / Dropbox
   \ "dropbox"
 5 / Encrypt/Decrypt a remote
   \ "crypt"
 6 / FTP interface
   \ "ftp"
 7 / Google Cloud Storage (this is not Google Drive)
   \ "google cloud storage"
 8 / Google Drive
   \ "drive"
 9 / Hubic
   \ "hubic"
10 / Local Disk
   \ "local"
11 / Microsoft OneDrive
   \ "onedrive"
12 / Openstack Swift (Rackspace Cloud Files, Memset Memstore, OVH)
   \ "swift"
13 / SSH/SFTP Connection
   \ "sftp"
14 / Yandex Disk
   \ "yandex"
Storage> ftp
Username
username> anonymous
Password
y) Yes type in my own password
g) Generate random password
y/g> y
Enter the password:
password:
Confirm the password:
password:
FTP URL
url> ftp://ftp.mirrorservice.org/
Remote config
--------------------
[remote]
username = anonymous
password = *** ENCRYPTED ***
url = ftp://ftp.mirrorservice.org/
--------------------
y) Yes this is OK
e) Edit this remote
d) Delete this remote
y/e/d> y
```

This remote is called `remote` and can now be used like this

See all directories in the home directory

    rclone lsd remote:

Make a new directory

    rclone mkdir remote:path/to/directory

List the contents of a directory

    rclone ls remote:path/to/directory

Sync `/home/local/directory` to the remote directory, deleting any
excess files in the directory.

    rclone sync /home/local/directory remote:directory

### Modified time ###

FTP does not support modified times.  Any times you see on the server
will be time of upload.

### Checksums ###

FTP does not support any checksums.

### Limitations ###

Note that since FTP isn't HTTP based the following flags don't work
with it: `--dump-headers`, `--dump-bodies`, `--dump-auth`

Note that `--timeout` isn't supported (but `--contimeout` is).

FTP could support server side move but doesn't yet.