Breaking the ceiling!

September 5, 2017 Michael Kennon

Ever run into the max file size upload limits when trying to add a Media file on your WordPress website?
There are numerous workarounds for this, but none of them are very easy and some may cost you more money than you may want to spend on your hosting service.
Of these not so easy workarounds, an FTP Client program will solve most of your problems. FTP or File Transfer Protocol allows you to transfer files directly from your computer to your website folders on your hosting service or visa-versa.
Almost all hosting services offer FTP access to your site’s folders and files. Some are more secure than others for the file transfers. If your site was created using a Site Builder application provided by the hosting service you may be out of luck though, but I need to take a pass on explaining why for now on this.
As for an FTP Client program there are several that I prefer.
One of the more popular ones is called FileZilla. FileZilla is more for advanced users, but once you learn the basics and all of the various settings it gets that job done very well. This is a Stand Alone program for your computer and is free.
Also popular is the FireFTP Addon for the FireFox web browser. This one is actually my favorite FTP client program. Both the FireFTP Addon and FireFox web browser are free.
Now once you get your large media file uploaded to your hosting service, in a WordPress site you will need to take an additional step to get the file registered in your Media Library. There is a WordPress Plugin called Media from FTP. It looks for unregistered media files and will add them to your Media Library in a fairly simple set of steps.