Syncing FileZilla SiteManager via Dropbox

There’s a great chance that you, just like me, are working from multiple devices regularly. Although not optimal, sometimes you have to edit files over ftp/sftp – especially when working with web servers – or to sync files back and forth. Therefore, you need to have saved sessions with you at all times.

FileZilla is a very popular cross-platform tool used to manage FTP sessions. While it offers a session management feature called Site Manager, I have to point out before going any further:

That being said, here’s how you can sync your Site Manager information between your devices.

FileZilla saved session info in a file called sitemanager.xml. The default location for this file is:

• Linux: /opt/FileZilla/sitemanager.xml
• Windows:  C:\Users\Username\AppData\Roaming\FileZilla\sitemanager.xml
• Mac: /Users/Username/.config/filezilla/sitemanager.xml

The approach to this is by using Symbolic Links. What they do is that they tell your OS where to find a certain file while allowing you to call it using a completely different path. We will create links between sitemanager.xml file in each OS and to the desired Dropbox directory, while keeping the original .xml file inside Dropbox. This way, we will have two different paths that lead to the same file, and the program will be able to use it just fine.

To get started, create a folder called ‘Config’ in Dropbox, and copy the sitemanager.xml from its location mentioned above to this folder. After that, remove it from original directory. Make sure to have a 2nd copy elsewhere in case things go wrong. Make sure to take a backup from all of your sitemanager.xml files as you may have sessions not present in all of them, so that you can go back to them later.

Creating Symbolic Links on Linux/Mac:

I’ll start working on Linux first, so the step discussed above regarding copying the file to Dropbox should have been done prior to continuing below. After that, create a symbolic link as follows

# ln -s /home/Username/Dropbox/Configs/sitemanager.xml /opt/FileZilla/sitemanager.xml

Command Explanation:

• ln -s: to create a symbolic link
• /home/[Username]/Dropbox/Configs/sitemanager.xml: is where the actual file currently exists (i.e. Dropbox in my case)
• /opt/FileZilla/sitemanager.xml: is where you want to create the new link.

You can do the same procedure on Mac, taking into account any differences in paths.

Creating Symbolic Links on Windows:

We will do the steps using Windows Command Prompt. Search for cmd/Command Prompt in Start Menu, then right click on it and select ‘Run as Administrator’. We will use the ‘mklink’ command as follows:

> mklink "C:\Users\Username\AppData\Roaming\FileZilla\sitemanager.xml" "D:\Dropbox\Config\sitemanager.xml"


Command Explanation:

• mklink: to create a symbolic link
• “C:\Users\[Username]\AppData\Roaming\FileZilla\sitemanager.xml”: where you want to create the new link.
• “D:\Dropbox\Config\sitemanager.xml”: is where the actual file currently exists (i.e. Dropbox in my case)

Done! If all went well then you should be able to see any newly created site across your devices as the file is synced.