nonpassive = False # passive FTP by default
remotesite = 'learning-python.com' # upload to this site
remotedir = 'books' # from machine running on
remoteuser = 'lutz'
remotepass = getpass('Password for %s on %s: ' % (remoteuser, remotesite))
localdir = (len(sys.argv) > 1 and sys.argv[1]) or '.'
cleanall = input('Clean remote directory first? ')[:1] in ['y', 'Y']

print('connecting...')
connection = ftplib.FTP(remotesite) # connect to FTP site
connection.login(remoteuser, remotepass) # log in as user/password
connection.cwd(remotedir) # cd to directory to copy
if nonpassive: # force active mode FTP
connection.set_pasv(False) # most servers do passive

if cleanall:
for remotename in connection.nlst(): # try to delete all remotes
try: # first, to remove old files
print('deleting remote', remotename)
connection.delete(remotename) # skips. and .. if attempted
except:
print('cannot delete remote', remotename)

count = 0 # upload all local files
localfiles = os.listdir(localdir) # listdir() strips dir path

any failure ends script

for localname in localfiles:
mimetype, encoding = guess_type(localname) # e.g., ('text/plain', 'gzip')
mimetype = mimetype or '?/?' # may be (None, None)
maintype = mimetype.split('/')[0] # .jpg ('image/jpeg', None')

localpath = os.path.join(localdir, localname)
print('uploading', localpath, 'to', localname, end=' ')
print('as', maintype, encoding or '')

if maintype == 'text' and encoding == None:

use ascii mode xfer and bytes file

need rb mode for ftplib's crlf logic

localfile = open(localpath, 'rb')
connection.storlines('STOR ' + localname, localfile)

else:

use binary mode xfer and bytes file

localfile = open(localpath, 'rb')
connection.storbinary('STOR ' + localname, localfile)

localfile.close()
count += 1

connection.quit()
print('Done:', count, 'files uploaded.')

Transferring Directories with ftplib | 881