Uploading only recent changes with Put Recent in FTP by Zaweba

You have spent the morning editing a handful of pages and stylesheets across different folders, and now you want them live. Picking each file out of the tree is slow and easy to get wrong. Put Recent to Server in FTP by Zaweba collects them for you: it gathers every local file changed within a time you choose, shows you the list, and uploads them once you agree.

Why it is quick

Most ways of working out what to upload need to look at the server first. Put Newer and Sync both compare your files with the server's copies, which means listing the server, and on a big site that takes a while. Put Recent does not scan the server at all. It looks only at your own files and when they changed, which your PC can answer almost instantly. For the everyday case of uploading what you just worked on, that is all it needs to know.

Using it

Choose Put Recent to Server and pick how far back to look: a few minutes, some hours, or some days. The app lists every local file changed in that window. Read the list, untick anything you did not mean to send, and confirm. Only then does anything go up.

It is also available for a single folder. That narrows the search to the part of the site you were working in, which is useful when you have changes elsewhere that are not ready to go.

Picking the right window

Choose a window that just covers your session. If you started work an hour ago, a couple of hours is plenty. Too long a window brings in older changes that may already be on the server (harmless, but slower) or changes from another job you meant to keep back (more of a problem, which is why the list is worth reading). Too short a window misses the first file you edited. When in doubt, go a little wider and untick what you do not want.

Put Recent, Put Newer or Sync

Each of these has a place. Put Recent is the quick one, for uploading what you have just done. Put Newer compares with the server and uploads only local files that are newer than the server copy or not on the server yet, leaving alone any file that is newer on the server. That makes it the safer choice when other people also edit the site. Sync shows actions in either or both directions with a reason for each, and is the tool for bringing two copies fully into line.

Because Put Recent never looks at the server, it cannot know that someone else changed a file there since you last fetched it. If you share a site, either run Get Recent from Server first to pick up their work, or use Put Newer instead.

Mistakes to avoid

Be careful with anything that touches every file. A replace across the whole site, a script that rewrites files or simply copying a folder in from somewhere else can change many files at once, and Put Recent will see them all as recent. Read the list before you confirm; if it is far longer than you expected, that is the likely reason.

Remember your exclusion patterns. Anything matching the site's Exclude box is never transferred, so files such as logs or a node_modules folder stay on your PC even if they changed a moment ago. If a file you expected is missing from the list, check whether a pattern is catching it.

Finally, a safety note that applies to every upload in FTP by Zaweba: before a server file is overwritten by Put, the previous version is kept in the local history on your PC. If you send something by mistake, the old copy is there to compare against or restore.

Used at the end of each working session, Put Recent becomes a quick habit: pick a window, read the list, send it, and get on with your day.