How to search all the files in a website folder

Use Find in Files in FTP by Zaweba. It searches across the files of the site you have open, with the same Match case, Whole word and Regular expression options as the ordinary Find, and lists the results in the bottom panel. If a search is taking too long, Stop cancels it.

It's the tool for "where on earth is that phone number?" and for any change you need to make in more than one file.

Common jobs it makes quick

Updating something that appears on many pages: an old phone number, a company name, a copyright year, an email address in footers.

Tracking down where a style or script is used. Search for a class name to see every page that relies on it before you change it.

Finding links to a page you're about to rename or delete, so nothing is left pointing at a page that no longer exists.

Checking for leftovers: old domain names after a move, test text, or an analytics code you've replaced.

Running a search

Open the site so its local folder is showing. Start Find in Files.

Type what you're looking for. Tick Match case if capital letters matter, and Whole word if you want "art" without "start".

Run the search. The results are listed in the bottom panel. Work down them, opening each file in the editor.

Make your change, then save. If Upload on Save is on for the site, each saved file goes straight to the server; otherwise use Put Recent to Server afterwards to upload everything you changed in the last little while, with a list to check first.

Using regular expressions

Regular expression lets you search for a pattern rather than exact text. That's useful for finding every copyright year, every address with a certain domain, or every phone number written in slightly different ways. If you're new to them, start simple and check the results list before changing anything, because a loose pattern can match more than you meant.

Searching versus finding a file

Find in Files looks inside files. If you only want to open a file and know part of its name, Quick Open (Ctrl+P) is faster: type a few letters and jump to it. For the file trees themselves, the funnel button filters by name, date and size.

Inside a single open file, Find and Replace does the same kind of search with Replace and Replace All, Find Next (F3) and Find Previous (Shift+F3), and Go to Line.

Keeping changes safe

Changing the same text across many files is where mistakes multiply. Two habits help. First, read each result before you change it; a search for a name may also find it inside a word or a link you want to keep. Second, rely on the safety net: every save that overwrites a file keeps the previous version in local version history, and every Put that overwrites a server file does the same. If a change goes wrong, the history window lets you compare and restore.

Once the files are right, a quick look in Live Preview, which shows the page beside the code as you work, confirms nothing looks out of place before FTP by Zaweba sends it to the live site.