Site to site transfers (FXP)

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Site to site transfers

You can connect to two FTP servers and transfer files between them using FXP (File eXchange Protocol).

FXP allows you copy files from one FTP server to another. It is not possible to transfer files between FTP and SFTP servers, or between two SFTP servers.

When you transfer files between two FTP servers using an FXP client, the maximum transfer speed does not depend on your connection but only on the connection between the two FTP servers, which is usually much faster than your own connection.


How to perform site to site transfers with FlashFXP.

Start FlashFXP.

On the left side we have the local browser showing the content of your hard disk, on the right is the remote browser view showing the remote site.

To do Site to Site transfers we need to switch the local browser view to remote browser view, so we have two remote sites side by side.

This is done by clicking on the switch to Remote browser button. This button is the last one on the right toolbar. Click on it once and it will change to this:

At the same time the local browser will change to the remote view.

The next step is to connect to a site on the left pane and then the right pane.

After both sites are connected transferring files between the servers is as simple as dragging the file from one side to the other.

When performing site to site transfers the progress of the transfer is unknown to the FXP client because the file content is sent directly between the two FTP servers, however after the first file transfer FlashFXP will attempt to estimate the transfer progress and time remaining for all future transfers and will continue to update the estimate as each file is completed.


Site to site transfer limitations

Both FTP servers must support PASV and PORT mode and allow PORT commands to foreign hosts.

In recent years many FTP servers have started shipping with the default configuration set to deny site to site transfers due to possible security concerns. So its left up to the server administrator to explicitly enable it.

If the server is not configured to allow site to site transfers the FTP server might return an error message (the error message can vary from server to server) or the server might disconnect you.

One big misconception is that folders are transferred, The FXP client creates the folders directly on the server and this is why folders may be created even though the server doesn't allow site to site transfers.