Tagging files on the server with Tag by in FTP by Zaweba

Cleaning up a server rarely means one file. It means every backup archive older than a year, or every image over a certain size in an uploads folder, or every log file anywhere in the site. Picking those out by hand is slow and error-prone. Tagging in the Disk view of FTP by Zaweba gives you a way to build up exactly the set you mean, check it, and then act on it in one go.

Tagging by hand

You can tag files directly in the Disk list or tree. There are also quicker ways to tag many at once: tag or untag a folder, tag everything currently listed, invert the tags, or clear all. Invert is handy when it is easier to describe what you want to keep than what you want to remove. Tag the keepers, invert, and the rest are tagged.

Tag by

Tag by does the picking for you, using rules. It can match a filespec (a name pattern), a type, a size and a modified age.

For size, choose at least, over or at most a value. For age, choose files modified some number of days ago, or within a number of days. You can then decide where to look: in the current list, in this branch of the tree, or across the whole scan.

Combining rules is where it becomes powerful. Archives over a certain size that have not been modified for months is one rule set, not an afternoon of scrolling. Images in one branch over a chosen size is another.

What you can do with tagged files

Once tagged, files can be downloaded, exported, moved, renamed or sent to the trash together. Downloading them is a good first step before any clean-up. Exporting gives you a record. Moving them somewhere tidier, renaming them with bulk rename, or trashing them follows once you are sure.

Trashing goes through a batch confirmation, and protected paths such as .htaccess and wp-config.php are left out and listed, so a broad rule cannot catch them. Trashed items can be restored from the Trash window, and Disk operations appear in the operations log, where renames, moves, trashing and permission changes can be undone as a batch.

A worked approach

Start with the treemap and the biggest 100 files to see where the space is going. The web-server lens may already have pointed out database dumps, backup archives or cache folders. Use Tag by to tag the kind of file you are after, then read through what is tagged. Untag anything you are not sure about. Download or export the tagged set as a record, then trash it.

Give it a day. If nothing on the site breaks and nobody asks after a missing file, empty the trash to free the space.

Mistakes to avoid

Watch the scope. A Tag by rule run across the whole scan finds far more than the same rule in one branch. Before acting, check how many files are tagged and whether that number makes sense.

Do not rely on age alone. A file that has not changed in years may be an old backup, or it may be a logo every page still uses. Combine age with type or location, and read the list.

And do not skip the record. Exporting the list of tagged files or downloading them costs little, and if a question comes up later about what was removed, you have the answer.

Tagging turns server clean-ups from a nervous scroll into a set of rules you can check before you act, which is how a clean-up on someone else's website ought to feel.