FTP Access

In general, wherever base folders are used in Beyond Compare, you can use a folder on an FTP site instead.

Browsing to an FTP folder

Beyond Compare's Browse for Folder | dialog has a tab for FTP sites.  On it, you can select a previously defined FTP profile, or enter a new hostname and other parameters.  An FTP profile is automatically created with each new combination of hostname, protocol, and username that doesn't use the defaults.

The Initial remote folder field identifies the base folder on the FTP site.  You can click Connect & Browse to find the folder interactively.

Typing an FTP specification

You can type an FTP specification directly into either of the base path edit controls by using this syntax:

ftp://username@ftp.hostname.com

The program will prompt for the password as needed. Or, you can include the password in the specification:

ftp://username:password@ftp.hostname.com

Leave the username off for anonymous access:

ftp://ftp.hostname.com

You can specify a folder relative to the login folder:

ftp://username@ftp.hostname.com/subfolder

...or relative to the site's root folder:

ftp://username@ftp.hostname.com//subfolder

To specify SFTP (SSH2) access, use this syntax:

sftp://username@hostname.com

To specify FTP over SSL (explicit SSL), use this syntax:

ftps://username@hostname.com