Set FileZilla As Default FTP Protocol Handler in Windows

FileZilla is perhaps the most downloaded and most popular FTP client for Windows or Linux. It is small, fast, open-source and supports all the latest technologies. But as far as Windows is concerned, it does not register itself as an application that can handle FTP addresses. So if you type any FTP URL in the Run dialog, in a command prompt window or try to open it through a batch script, it will ask you to open that FTP URL in a web browser like Microsoft Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome or Opera.

If you want to make FileZilla the default FTP protocol handler in Windows, then you can follow these simple steps:

  1. First of all download and install latest version of FileZilla FTP client on your Windows PC. Its no use to follow these instructions, if you have not installed FileZilla on your PC.
  2. Download FileZilla Association REG Generator and save it on the Windows Desktop.
  3. Extract the contents of the downloaded ZIP file, launch FileZillAssoc.exe, click on Browse to select the location of FileZilla.exe file on your PC. Make FileZilla FTP Protocol Handler
  4. Now click on the Create REG File button to generate associate-filezilla.reg file. Double-click on this REG file to merge the entries into Windows Registry.
  5. Restart your Windows PC, so that all the new registry keys are properly loaded.
  6. Press the key combination Win+R to open the Run dialog, type any public FTP URL (for example, ftp://ftp.mirror.nl/) and press Enter.Make FileZilla FTP Protocol Handler
  7. Windows will ask you to choose one FTP client from the list. Choose FileZilla FTP Client, select Always use this app and then click on the OK button.Make FileZilla FTP Protocol Handler

That’s it. You are all set. Now you can open FTP URLs from the Run dialog, batch scripts, command line scripts and so on. In all these cases, FileZilla will launch and open your FTP URL.

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