How to rename the installation directory of Joomla using FTP

Follow these steps to rename your Joomla installation directory using FTP:

Steps

1. Download and Install FTP Client:
   • If you don’t already have one, download and install an FTP client (e.g., FileZilla).
2. Connect to Your Server:
   • Open your FTP client and enter your FTP credentials (host, username, password, port) to connect to your server.
3. Locate Joomla Directory:
   • Navigate to the directory where Joomla is installed. This is typically named something like public_html or www.
4. Rename the Directory:
   • Right-click on the Joomla installation directory and select the “Rename” option.
   • Enter the new name for the directory and press Enter.
5. Update Configuration:
   • After renaming the directory, you need to update the Joomla configuration file:
   • Navigate to the renamed directory and find the configuration.php file.
   • Download this file to your local machine.
   • Open the configuration.php file in a text editor.
   • Find the line that defines the $log_path and $tmp_path and update them to reflect the new directory name. For example:

     
     public $log_path = '/path/to/new_directory/logs';
     public $tmp_path = '/path/to/new_directory/tmp';
                         

   • Save the file and upload it back to the server, overwriting the old one.
6. Test the Site:
   • Visit your Joomla site in a web browser to ensure that it is working correctly after the directory rename.

Important Notes

• Always backup your website and database before making changes.
• Renaming the directory might affect any custom paths or configurations that rely on the original directory name.
• Ensure that you update any relevant configurations to avoid issues with your Joomla site.

This tutorial assumes you have a FTP application and have opened and logged in to your server via FTP

There are a number of both free and commercial FTP applications. In this example, we will be using CuteFTP

1) On your (remote) web server, open the htdocs or public_html directory, then select the directory where Joomla has been previously installed

2) Right click the ‘joomla’ directory and select Rename from the options

3) Click the beginning of the directory name and let’s add the letters ‘my’

4) Next double click the ‘myjoomla’ directory to open it

Now scroll down to locate the file named ‘configuration.php’

5) Select and right click on the file ‘configuration.php’, then select the Edit option

From the editor, we only need to change the path to the log and temp file paths. Most, if not all, Joomla templates will detect the directory they are running from

Scroll down to the bottom of the file

6) Select the place in the $log_path where we will edit it to match our new directory name

7) Change the path to read ‘myjoomla’ from just ‘joomla’

8) Do the same for the $tmp_path value

9) Next select to Save the edited file

10) Now close the editor

If you are unable to edit the file from within your FTP application then you will need to download the file to your computer, edit it and then upload it to your web server

11) After downloading the file, right click it and select a text editor to make the changes in

12) Scroll to the bottom of the file and make the changes to the file as previously described

13) Be sure to Save your changes

14) Now from your FTP application, locate the file you edited on your computer and upload it to your web server in the Joomla directory

15) We want to overwrite the old file with new edited one so select the Yes button

You now know how to rename your Joomla directory using FTP