How to copy the public URL of a file on your server

Right-click the file in the server pane of FTP by Zaweba and choose Copy Public URL. The full web address of the file is copied, such as https://example.com/software/zip/index.html, ready to paste into an email, a page or a message.

It is a small thing that saves real time. You upload a PDF price list, a client asks for the link, and instead of working out the address from the folder path and typing it carefully, you right-click and paste.

Setting it up once

Copy Public URL needs to know your site's public address, the https address people type to reach it. You set that once per site in Site Manager (File or Site > Manage Sites), in the public address box. FTP by Zaweba then joins that address to the file's path from the web root.

If the public address is left empty, Copy Public URL still works but copies just the path from the web root, such as /software/zip/index.html. That is useful for writing links inside your own pages, but not for sending to someone.

The web root is the folder your host serves as the front of your site, often public_html or www. It is usually the remote folder you set for the site in Site Manager.

Copying addresses

Find the file in the server pane, right-click and choose Copy Public URL. Paste it wherever you need it.

For a folder, the address ends with a trailing slash, which is how web addresses for folders are normally written. Select several files and you get one address per line, which is handy when you are sending a set of documents or listing images for someone.

Copy Server Path versus Copy Public URL

Next to it on the right-click menu is Copy Server Path. That copies the full path of the file on the server. It is what you need for a support ticket with your host, a setting in a script that wants a file location, or a note to yourself about where something lives. It isn't a web address and won't open in a browser.

Copy Public URL is for people and browsers. Copy Server Path is for servers and scripts.

Checking the address works

After copying, paste it into a browser to make sure the file opens. If it doesn't, the usual causes are a public address in Site Manager that doesn't match how the site is really reached (with or without www, http or https), or a file that hasn't finished uploading. The transfer queue in the bottom panel shows whether the upload completed.

Good uses for it

Sharing downloads is the obvious one: menus, brochures, booking forms, price lists. Sending a client the address of a page you have just changed so they can approve it is another. When you are writing a page that links to a file elsewhere on the site, the path version without a public address can save typing.

It also pairs well with the image tools. Crop and resize a picture, Save for Web, upload it, then Copy Public URL to drop the image address into an email or a social post. The whole job happens in FTP by Zaweba without opening a browser to hunt for the file.