Host a website from your own files

A files website is a website you made somewhere else: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, images and anything else, served exactly as you upload them. Magpie gives it an address at once, and your own domain can point at it when you are ready.

Make one

Choose New website on the Websites page, give it a name and choose Upload your own files. The Magpie address is made from the name (acme for a website called Acme), and the drawer shows it as you type. The name and the address can be changed later in More, then Edit details. The website is published from the start, but nothing is shown until its first files arrive. Add a sample page puts one index.html at the address so you can see it answer; your first upload of an index.html replaces it. Your email address must be confirmed before you can make one or upload to it.

The Free plan includes 1 website; Pro and the Team plan include 20, counting both kinds of website.

Upload files

Drop a folder, files or a ZIP anywhere on the website's page, or choose them with Upload files or Upload folder (a phone's browser cannot choose a folder, so that button is not shown there). Before anything is sent, the page lists what will be uploaded, which files replace one already on the site, and which cannot be uploaded and why. Upload files sends them; the count and the amount sent are shown as they go, and the files are live together when the last one has arrived. If some files do not arrive, the page lists them with Try again, Finish without them and Discard the upload. Closing the page during an upload keeps the files that arrived, and the page then offers Finish without the rest or Discard; nothing on the site changes until you choose. An unfinished upload left alone for 60 minutes is discarded.

• index.html at the top is the home page. A visitor who asks for /about gets about.html or about/index.html; a folder's index.html is its page. A file called 404.html is shown for an address that has nothing.
• When an empty website gets a folder with one folder at the top, that folder becomes the site's root, so my-site/index.html is the home page. Keep the folder keeps it instead. A ZIP works the same way, and is listed before it is sent.
• A file can be up to 200 MB, and a website up to 5,000 files. Larger files belong in Store downloads or Secure Files.
• Programs, installers and shortcuts cannot be uploaded. Server-side code such as PHP or Python is refused too, because Magpie serves files as they are: upload the HTML the code produces.
• Each file counts toward the storage of the person who uploaded it, on their plan, while any kept version uses it. A file that would put you over your storage is refused with the amount in use; the rest of the batch still uploads.
• One account can upload up to 2,000 files in an hour, across all its websites. Past that, the page says when uploading can continue.

Paths are kept as typed, so Logo.png and logo.png are different files, and a folder cannot hold both. The page says which one is in the way.

Files and folders

The Files band lists the live version's folders first, then its files. Opening a folder shows its files; the folder is in the address, so Back returns to it. On a website with many files, a search box above the list finds a file by name.

• Click a file's name to rename it. Move… in its More menu moves it to another folder; Delete removes it at once, with Undo for a moment afterwards.
• Tick files to move or delete several together. Deleting a folder or a selection asks first and names what goes.
• New folder makes a folder, which is kept once a file is uploaded into it.
• Open shows the file at the site's address; Download, in More, saves it.

Versions

Every change is a version: an upload, a rename, a move, a delete or a restore. Magpie keeps the 50 most recent versions. The Versions band lists them, newest first, with who made each, when, what changed, and how many files and how much space it has. Restore makes an earlier version live again as a new version, so nothing is lost. Download ZIP in a version's More menu gives that version's files; the one in the website's More menu gives the live version's.

Addresses and your domain

Open site opens the live version at its address. The address is where you check the site before pointing your domain at it. Team admins connect a domain from Custom domain in More; see Show your website at your own domain. Turn off Published in Edit details to take the site offline; its files and versions stay.

A files website is served on its own address, never on Magpie's. Its scripts run on that address alone, so they cannot read anything of your Magpie account.

Where the files come from

A files website's files come from uploads on its page, or from a Git repository in the team: each push to the branch makes the site again. Switch where files come from in More changes between the two. See Build a website from a Git repository for websites built from a repository.

An editor website can become a files website with Switch to your own files in its File menu (Build and publish a website). A files website cannot become an editor website, and its files are not edited in the browser.

Trash and suspension

To remove a files website, choose More, then Move to Trash. Its address answers as if it did not exist, and restoring it from Trash within 30 days brings it back published if it was. Its files count toward storage until it is deleted forever.

If a website breaks Magpie's rules, Magpie may suspend it. Every address then says the page was not found, the website's page shows the reason to its team, and the team's admins are emailed once. To resolve it, Contact support.