File

The file module provides a powerful graphical file manager. The design philosophy is to restore the Windows Explorer operation experience as much as possible, supporting right-click menus, drag-and-drop upload, keyboard shortcuts, and other features.

File Manager

Core Features

Windows-like Operation Experience

• Right-click Menu: Right-click on files or directories to pop up an action menu
• Drag-and-drop Upload: Directly drag local files to the browser window to upload
• Multi-select Operations: Support Ctrl+click for multi-select, Shift+click for range selection
• Keyboard Shortcuts: Common operations have corresponding keyboard shortcuts

Keyboard Shortcuts

Shortcut	Function
Ctrl+C	Copy
Ctrl+X	Cut
Ctrl+V	Paste
Delete	Delete selected
F2	Rename selected (single selection)
Ctrl+A	Select All
Ctrl+T	Open a new tab
Ctrl+W	Close the current tab
Enter	Open the selected entry (single selection)
Backspace	Go to the parent directory
Escape	Clear the current selection
↑ ↓	Move the selection between entries
← →	Move the selection (grid view only)
Home / End	Jump to the first / last entry
Shift + arrow / Home / End	Extend the selection while moving

On macOS, use Cmd in place of Ctrl. Keyboard shortcuts are ignored while focus is inside an input box or while the file editor window is open.

Navigation

Path Navigation

The top displays breadcrumb navigation of the current path. Click to quickly jump to any parent directory.

Quick Buttons

• Back: Return to the previous visited directory
• Forward: Go to the next directory
• Up: Return to parent directory
• Refresh: Refresh current directory
• Show/Hide Hidden Files: Toggle whether dotfiles (e.g. .bashrc) are displayed

Tabs

The file manager supports multiple tabs, so you can browse several directories at once:

• Click the + button on the tab bar (or press Ctrl+T) to open a new tab
• Click the × on a tab (or press Ctrl+W) to close it; you can also close a tab with a middle-click
• Each tab keeps its own path and browsing history

File List

The file list displays the following information:

Column	Description
Name	File or directory name
Size	File size, directories show "Calculate" which can be clicked to calculate
Permissions	File permissions (e.g., 0755)
Owner/Group	File owner and group
Modified Time	Last modified time
Actions	Open, compress, rename, delete, more

Select Files

After selecting files, batch operation buttons appear at the top:

• Copy: Copy selected files
• Move: Move selected files
• Compress: Compress selected files
• Permissions: Modify permissions
• Delete: Delete selected files

More Actions

Click the More button on the file row to display more action options:

• Copy: Copy file to another directory
• Move: Move file to another directory
• Permissions: Modify file permissions and owner
• Compress: Compress file
• Uncompress: Extract the archive (only shown for compressed files)
• Copy Path: Copy the full path of the file
• Terminal: Open a terminal in the directory (only shown for directories)
• Properties: View detailed file properties

Compress

When you compress one or more entries, the dialog lets you edit the target archive name and pick an archive Format. The file extension is updated automatically to match the selected format. Supported formats:

Format	Description
.zip	ZIP archive
.gz	Gzip
.tar	Uncompressed tar archive
.tar.gz	Gzip-compressed tar
.tgz	Gzip-compressed tar (alias)
.tar.bz2	Bzip2-compressed tar
.tar.xz	XZ-compressed tar
.tar.zst	Zstandard-compressed tar
.7z	7-Zip archive

.gz, .xz, .bz2, and .zst are also supported as single-file compression formats. They compress one file rather than creating a multi-file archive; use a tar.*, ZIP, or 7-Zip format when the selection contains several entries or a directory.

Compression and extraction are submitted as background tasks. You can leave the Files page and follow progress and failures under Tasks > Panel Tasks. Refresh the directory after the task completes.

Toolbar

New

Click the New button to:

• Create new file
• Create new directory

Upload

Click the Upload button to upload local files to the server.

Supported upload methods:

• Click to select files for upload
• Drag-and-drop Upload: Directly drag files to the page to upload

Before transferring data, AcePanel checks the destination for name conflicts. For each conflicting item—or for all remaining conflicts at once—choose Skip, Rename, or Overwrite. Review directory conflicts carefully: overwrite can replace existing content, while rename keeps both entries under different names.

Share

Use Share on a file to create a public download link. Choose an expiry of 1 hour, 1 day, 7 days, or 30 days and optionally limit the number of downloads. Copy the URL from the active share or cancel it when it is no longer needed.

Anyone with the URL can download the file until it expires, reaches its limit, or is cancelled. Do not share backups, private keys, database dumps, configuration files, or logs containing credentials. Cancelling a share prevents future downloads but cannot recall existing copies.

Remote Download

Click the Remote Download button, enter a URL address to download remote files to the current directory.

Use cases:

• Download software installation packages
• Download remote backup files
• Get files from other servers

Search

Enter keywords in the search box to search for files:

• Default searches current directory
• Check Include Subdirectories to search recursively

Terminal

Click the Terminal button to open a terminal in the current directory for convenient command line operations.

Sort

Click the Sort button to sort the file list by different fields.

File Editor

AcePanel has a built-in powerful code editor based on Monaco Editor (the same editor core as VS Code).

Editor Features

• Syntax Highlighting: Supports syntax highlighting for various programming languages
• Code Folding: Supports code block folding
• Line Numbers: Displays line numbers for easy positioning
• Minimap: Displays code thumbnail on the right side
• Word Wrap: Can toggle word wrap mode
• Multi-file Editing: Supports opening multiple files simultaneously with tab switching

Editor Shortcuts

Shortcut	Function
Ctrl+S	Save current file
Ctrl+Shift+S	Save all files
Ctrl+F	Search
Ctrl+H	Replace
Ctrl+G	Go to line
Ctrl+/	Toggle a comment in supported configuration files

Editor Toolbar

• Save: Save current file
• Save All: Save all modified files
• Refresh: Reload file content
• Search: Open search panel
• Replace: Open replace panel
• Go to: Jump to specified line
• Font Size: Adjust editor font size
• Toggle Word Wrap: Enable/disable word wrap
• Toggle Minimap: Show/hide right-side minimap
• Settings: Open the editor settings dialog

Editor Settings

Clicking Settings opens a dialog where the editor behavior can be fine-tuned. Settings take effect immediately and are grouped as follows.

Basic

Setting	Description
Tab Size	Width of a tab, from 1 to 8
Use Spaces	Insert spaces instead of tab characters when pressing Tab
Font Size	Editor font size, from 10 to 24
Word Wrap	Off, On, Word Wrap Column, or Bounded
Show Minimap	Show or hide the code minimap on the right side

Display

Setting	Description
Line Numbers	On, Off, Relative, or Interval
Render Whitespace	None, Boundary, Selection, Trailing, or All
Bracket Colorization	Colorize matching bracket pairs
Indent Guides	Show indentation guide lines
Code Folding	Enable or disable code block folding

Cursor

Setting	Description
Cursor Style	Line, Block, Underline, Line Thin, Block Outline, or Underline Thin
Cursor Blinking	Blink, Smooth, Phase, Expand, or Solid
Smooth Scrolling	Enable smooth scrolling animation

Behavior

Setting	Description
Mouse Wheel Zoom	Zoom the editor by holding Ctrl and scrolling the mouse wheel
Format On Paste	Automatically format pasted content
Format On Type	Automatically format code as you type

Fullscreen Mode

Click the Maximize button for fullscreen editing to get more editing space:

Sidebar File Tree

The left side of the editor displays the file tree of the current directory, allowing you to:

• Quickly switch to edit other files
• Create new files and directories
• Search files
• Rename or delete entries via the right-click menu

Status Bar

The editor bottom status bar displays:

• Full file path
• Line ending type (LF/CRLF)
• Cursor position (line, column)
• Indentation settings (spaces/Tab)
• File language type

Tamper Protection

When Tamper Protection covers a file or directory, Files shows a lock and its protected or immutable state. Use the inline or context-menu action to add or remove protection.

For a supported single-item operation, AcePanel can temporarily remove the immutable attribute, perform the operation, and restore protection. Batch deletion does not silently unlock protected files and warns that immutable entries cannot be deleted. Review the interception log when an edit, upload, rename, extraction, or deployment is denied.

Permission Explanation

Linux file permissions are represented by three groups of numbers:

Permission	Number	Description
r	4	Read
w	2	Write
x	1	Execute

For example 0755:

• Owner: 7 (4+2+1) = read+write+execute
• Group: 5 (4+1) = read+execute
• Others: 5 (4+1) = read+execute

Common permissions:

• 0644: Regular files
• 0755: Executable files and directories
• 0600: Private files (such as keys)