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FTP access for Free Websites

Accessing Your Account

Once your free website account has been created and you recieve your email confirming your account, you will be able to access your account and upload your pages.

Currently, the only way to upload pages and related files to free accounts is via FTP (File Transfer Protocol) -- which is the standard way of transfering files from your local computer to an Internet server hosting a your website. In order to use FTP to upload files, you need a special software program called an FTP Client. There are several free FTP clients available for download as well as nice commercial programs that have advanced features (see below for links to various FTP clients).

FTP Information

You should have recieved an email message containing instructions. But if not, here is the information you need:

FTP Server: ftp.churchserve.com
FTP Username: your-username
FTP Password: your-password

your-username is usually the requested username, but sometimes we help you out -- particularly if the username requested has already been reserved.
your-password is usually the requested password, but sometimes we help you out.

Either way, you should monitor your email for our response containing your proper information.

We have reserved a maximum number of FTP connections to be open at once. Please be considerate and disconnect as soon as you have finished uploading your changes.

FTP Connections

In order to prevent overloading our systems, we limit the maximum number of FTP connections. Sometimes at peak times, you may have to wait until there is an open connection to upload your content, but such conditions are rare, so this is not usually an issue.

Support for FTP Software

Since there are so many FTP software programs out there, we are unable to provide very much support for them. Beyond basic FTP information needed to establish a connection we cannot give instructions on each FTP software package in existance. Our support pages will usually provide some instructions on the most common programs used, but that is the best level of support for specific FTP programs.

FTP Clients

WS_FTP Pro (Free trial, 30 days).
FTP Voyager (free trial, 30 days)
Coffee Cup FTP (free)
Cute FTP (free trial)
Core FTP (free with registration)
Smart FTP (free for personal, educational, and non-profit use)
Also, most operating systems have a built-in command-line driven FTP client -- just try typing "ftp" at the command-line.

Please note that "free trial" means after the trial period (usually 30 days), you are expected to pay for the software or stop using it -- some cases software disables itself. There are several FTP clients to choose from, the above list is just a few more popular ones. For more choices, see a software/shareware site like Downloads.com.