Working With Dreamweaver Site Files  (.STE)

When connecting to a new project via FTP I will occasionally come across .STE (Dreamweaver Site File) files being used as a means to store FTP username and password information. The FTP password is always encrypted in these files. This causes problems because I do not use Dreamweaver to build websites. Even worse, what if I were someone else that did not own a copy of Dreamweaver?

If you come across a legacy site that uses an .STE file to provide FTP information it can be difficult to get that information into another program.

Process

Here is the process I went through to extract the password from a .STE file:

  1. Open the .STE with a plain text editor. You will see an XML document.
  2. You will see that the &ls;remoteinfo> tag has many attributes. Find the pw=”” attribute and copy it’s contents to the clipboard.
  3. Go to https://www.moredw.com/getPW.php and click on the “Get FTP Password online” towards the bottom of the page. This will launch a popup window.
  4. Use the WebApp here to de-crypt the password.

That’s it, you’ve de-crypted the FTP password, your free now.

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Meet the Author

Kevin Leary, WordPress Consultant

I'm a freelance web developer and WordPress consultant in Boston, MA with 17 years of experience building websites and applications. View a portfolio of my work or request an estimate for your next project.