File Management

InstaPods provides multiple ways to manage files inside your pods — through the dashboard, CLI, SSH, or API.

Dashboard File Browser

The Files tab on the pod detail page provides a web-based file browser:

Browse directories starting from the app root
View and edit text files inline
Upload files from your computer
Create new folders
Delete files and folders

The editor opens text files up to 5 MB. A larger file, or one that isn’t UTF-8 text (an image, an archive, a database file), is refused with a message instead of being opened - download it from the Web IDE (right-click → Download) or with instapods files download.

CLI File Commands

The CLI provides a full set of file management commands. See CLI Files for complete documentation.

# List files
instapods files ls my-app

# Read a file
instapods files cat my-app /home/instapod/app/index.js

# Write a file
instapods files write my-app /home/instapod/app/hello.txt --content "Hello!"

# Pipe content via stdin
cat .env | instapods files write my-app /home/instapod/app/.env

# Upload a file
instapods files upload my-app ./index.html

# Download a file (any size, any type)
instapods files download my-app /home/instapod/app/data/app.db

# Sync a directory
instapods files sync my-app --local ./my-project --exclude node_modules --exclude .git

Web IDE

InstaPods includes a Monaco-based web IDE at /ide/{podId}. It provides:

File tree navigation
Syntax highlighting for most languages
Find and replace
Multiple file tabs

Access it from the pod detail page by clicking the IDE link.

SSH / SCP / SFTP

For full control, connect via SSH and use standard Unix tools:

# SSH into the pod (lowercase -p)
ssh instapod@HOST -p PORT

# SCP and SFTP take the port as a capital -P
scp -P PORT ./file.txt instapod@HOST:/home/instapod/app/
sftp -P PORT instapod@HOST

Copy the exact commands for your pod from the SSH tab of the pod detail page. See SSH Access for details.

Git Workflows

You can clone repos directly inside your pod:

ssh instapod@HOST -p PORT

# Inside the pod
cd /home/instapod/app
git clone https://github.com/you/your-repo .
npm install

App Root

Every pod has an app root directory — the default location for your application files:

Preset	App Root
All presets	`/home/instapod/app`

For PHP, the web-accessible root is /home/instapod/app/public. All other presets serve from the app root directly. The CLI commands (files ls, files upload, files sync) default to the pod’s app root when no explicit path is given.

Getting Started

Dashboard

Presets

Services

SSH & Files

Guides

Partners

Support

Dashboard File Browser

CLI File Commands

Web IDE

SSH / SCP / SFTP

Git Workflows

App Root

​Dashboard File Browser

​CLI File Commands

​Web IDE

​SSH / SCP / SFTP

​Git Workflows

​App Root

Dashboard File Browser

CLI File Commands

Web IDE

SSH / SCP / SFTP

Git Workflows

App Root