Manage files and folders

The Files panel in Dreamweaver allows you to access and manage files associated with your site. You can toggle between the FTP View and the Git View in Files panel, to manage the files using an FTP server or Git repositories.

To open the Files panel, click Window > Files, or press F8 (on Windows) or Shift-⌘-F (on Mac).

Read on to know how to use the Files panel in each of these views.

You can use the FTP view to view files and folders, check whether they are associated with a Dreamweaver site or not, and perform standard file maintenance operations, such as opening and moving files. The Files panel also helps you manage and transfer files to and from a remote server.

After you set up a site in Dreamweaver, you can use the Files panel in the following ways:

• Access sites, a server, and local drives
• View files and folders
• Manage files and folders in the Files panel
• Synchronize files and folders between local and remote servers

Read on to learn how to use the Files panel in the FTP View.

Options in the Files panel

At its simplest, the Files panel displays a list of only the local files in your computer. As you work more with the Files panel - setting up a site, setting up connections to remote servers, enabling check in and check out, more options appear in the Files panel.

Here's what the Files panel looks like:

• When no site is defined in Dreamweaver
• When a site is defined but a server is not defined
• When a site is defined, server connections are defined, and check-in and check-out of files is enabled

For information on defining a site and server, see About Dreamweaver sites.

When no site is defined in Dreamweaver

When a site is defined but a server is not defined

When you define a Dreamweaver site, the files within your site are displayed. The Files panel also includes a button - Define servers, which is a prompt to start defining connections to remote and testing servers.

When a site is defined and servers are defined and check-in and check-out is enabled

All options on the Files panel are available for you to use after you define a site, and server. If you enable check-in and check-out, these options are also available to use.

Read on to find out more about what you can do with the Files panel.

For information on enabling check-in and check-out, see Check in and check out files.

You can move the Files panel as necessary and set preferences for the panel.

Lets you select a Dreamweaver site and display that site’s files. You can also use the Site menu to access all the files on your local disk, much like Windows Explorer (Windows) or the Finder (Mac).

Lets you view files present in your local site root, remote server, or testing server. Select an option from the pop-up menu to see files in the respective view.

(FTP, RDS, and WebDAV protocol) Connects to or disconnects from the remote site. By default, Dreamweaver disconnects from the remote site if it has been idle for more than 30 minutes (FTP only). To change the time limit, select Edit > Preferences (Windows) or Dreamweaver > Preferences (Macintosh), then select Site from the category list on the left.

Copies the selected files from the remote site to your local site (overwriting the existing local copy of the file, if any). If Enable File Check In And Check Out is enabled, the local copies are read-only; the files remain available on the remote site for other team members to check out. If Enable File Check In and Check Out is disabled, the file copies have both read and write privileges.

Copies the selected files from the local site to the remote site.

Transfers a copy of the file from the remote server to your local site (overwriting the existing local copy of the file, if any) and marks the file as checked out on the server. This option is not available if Enable File Check In and Check Out is disabled for the current site.

Transfers a copy of the local file to the remote server and makes the file available for editing by others. The local file becomes read-only. This option is not available if Enable File Check In and Check Out is disabled for the current site.

Synchronizes the files between the local and remote folders.

Expands or collapses the Files panel to display one or two panes. In the Expanded view, an additional option - View site FTP log is also available. When the Files panel is collapsed it displays the contents of the local site, the remote site, or the testing server as a list of files. When expanded, it displays the local site and either the remote site or testing server.

Refreshes the local and remote directory lists. Use this button to manually refresh the directory lists if you deselected either Refresh Local File List Automatically or Refresh Remote File List Automatically in the Site Definition dialog box.

Displays the background file activity.

The View Site FTP log is available if you expand the Files panel by clicking the Expand/collapse icon.

Displays the file structure of the remote and local sites in the panes of the Files panel. (A preference setting determines which site appears in the left pane and which appears in the right pane.) Site Files view is the default view for the Files panel.

If you are putting a file that doesn’t already exist on the remote site, and Enable File Check In and Out is enabled, the file is added to the remote site as "checked out." Click the Check In Files button if you want to add a file without the checked out status.

View files and folders

You can view files and folders in the Files panel, whether they are associated with a Dreamweaver site or not. When you view sites, files, or folders in the Files panel, you can change the size of the viewing area, and, for Dreamweaver sites, you can expand or collapse the Files panel.

For Dreamweaver sites, you can also customize the Files panel by changing the view—either your local or remote site—that appears by default in the collapsed panel. Or, you can switch the content views in the expanded Files panel using the Always Show option.

Search files in the files panel (Mac OS, Creative Cloud users only)

Use Live Search to locate files based on filename or text present in files. The site selected in the Files panel is used for search. If there is no site selected in the panel, the search option does not appear. For more information, see Search files based on filenames or content.

Change the size of the view area in the expanded Files panel

In the Files panel (Window > Files), with the panel expanded, drag the bar that separates the two views to increase or decrease the view area of the right or left pane.

Change the site view in Files panel (Dreamweaver sites only)

You can use the Files panel to view files present in your local site root, remote server, or testing server.

In the collapsed Files panel (Window > Files), select Local View, Remote Server, or Testing Server from the Site View pop‑up menu.

By default, Local View appears in the Site View menu.

View files outside of a Dreamweaver site

Navigate your computer using the Site pop‑up menu, much as you would if you were using Windows Explorer(Windows) or the Finder (Macintosh).

Work with files in the FTP View

You can open or rename files; add, move, or delete files; or refresh the Files panel after you make changes.

For Dreamweaver sites, you can also determine which files (on either the local or remote site) have been updated since the last time they were transferred.

Open a file

Create a file or folder

Delete a file or folder

Rename a file or folder

Move a file or folder

Refresh the Files panel

To refresh the view in the Files panel, do one of the following:

• Right-click (Windows) or Control‑click (Macintosh) any file or folder, then select Refresh.
• (Dreamweaver sites only) Click the Refresh button in the Files panel toolbar (this option refreshes both panes).

Find files in your Dreamweaver site

Dreamweaver makes it easy to find selected, open, checked out, or recently modified files in your site. You can also find files that are newer in your local or remote site.

Find an open file in your site

Locate and select checked out files in a Dreamweaver site

Dreamweaver selects the files in the Files panel.

Find a selected file in your local or remote site

Locate and select files that are newer in the local site than in the remote site

Dreamweaver selects the files in the Files panel.

Locate and select files that are newer in the remote site than in the local site

Dreamweaver selects the files in the Files panel.

Find recently modified files in your site

Identify and delete unused files

You can identify and delete files that are no longer used by other files in your site.

Access sites, a server, and localdrives

You can access, modify, and save files and folders in your Dreamweaver sites, as well as files and folders that are not part of a Dreamweaver site. In addition to Dreamweaver sites, you can access a server, a local drive, or your desktop.

Before you can access a remote server, you must set up Dreamweaver to work with that server.

Open an existing Dreamweaver site

Open a folder on a remote FTP or RDS server

Access a local drive or your desktop

Customize the file and folder details displayed in the Files panel

When you view a Dreamweaver site in the Files panel, by default only the files and folder structure is displayed. However, you can customize the appearance of the Files panel to show the following details:

• Notes
• Size
• Type
• Date a file was last modified
• Check out details

You can do some additional column customization using the Manage Sites > Advanced Settings > File View Columns dialog:

• Change the order of columns
• Add, delete, or change column details

Change the order of columns

In the Manage Sites > Advanced Settings > File View Columns panel, select a column name, and then click the up or down arrow button to change the position of the selected column.

Add, delete, or change column details

To delete a column, select it and click the Minus (-) button. 

Sort columns in the Files panel

In the Files panel, click the heading for the column you want to sort.

Auto-recovery of files

If Dreamweaver shuts down unexpectedly because of system errors, power outages, or other problems, then you can recover any unsaved changes made to files you were working on.

The auto-recovery feature automatically backs up any unsaved files in Dreamweaver. If a crash occurs, the following dialog box is displayed during subsequent launches of Dreamweaver.

When you open a crashed Dreamweaver, you recover or discard last changes to a file:

• Recover - Select this option to open the auto-saved version of your file
• Discard - Select this option to open the last saved version of your file

Working with the Files panel in Git View

The Git view in Files panel allows you to connect with Git repositories, and manage files using Git. The Files panel works as an interface for you to perform various operations like commit, stage, unstage, add to gitignore and so on.

You can use the Git View to perform the following actions:

• View the files associated with a site, in Git repositories
• Synchronize files and folders between your local repository and Git
• View the untracked, staged, and committed files
• Access the Git terminal

You can also initialize a Git repository from this panel, if it has already not been done. When you create a site in Dreamweaver, you can associate a Git repository with your site. If you have not done this during site creation, you can Initialize a Git repository using the Files panel.

To initialize a repository, click Initialize Git from the Files panel. The files associated with your site are immediately visible in the Git view, along with their status.

View the status of files

You can view the status of the files associated with a Git repository, from the Files panel. When you initialize a Git repository, the files are displayed in green. This means that the files are untracked and do not exist in Git yet.

When you commit a file, the file appears in white in the Files panel. This means that the file has been committed in the Git repository that you have chosen. 

Now, when you edit and save a file after commit, the color of the file changes to yellow in the Files panel. This indicates that the files in your local repository and in the Git repository are not in sync.

To learn about the version control workflow in Git, see Using Git for version control.

Create and manage branches

You can create and manage branches locally, using the Files panel. To create a branch, select the drop-down list at the top of the panel. Click Manage Branches, and click the + sign from the Manage Branches dialog box.

You can choose your origin branch and create a new branch. You can also remove a branch and merge one branch with another.

To know more about managing local branches using the Files panel, see Create and manage branches.

Perform basic Git actions

Apart from initializing and managing branches, you can also perform various Git actions from the Files panel. From the files panel, select a file, right-click, and do one of the following:

• Click Add to .gitignore to  add the selected file or files to the gitignore folder. These files will not be touched by Git, and no actions can be performed on these files.
• Click Remove from .gitignore to remove a file from the gitignore folder.
• Click Stage to stage the selected file. Staging is one step behind committing a file in Git.
• Click Unstage to remove a file from staging.
• Click Stage All to stage all the files in the repository.
• Click Unstage All to remove all the files in the repository from staging.
• Click Diff to view the changes in the file between the previous commit and the current version.
• Click File History to view the change and commit history of the selected file.
• Click Revert File to discard all the changes done to the file, and restore the previous committed version.
• Click Commit All Staged to commit the files that you have staged, from this repository.

To know more about each of these actions, and about Git in Dreamweaver, read Using Git in Dreamweaver.