I would like my website visitors to see a directory listing when they try to access a certain directory in my web space. How do I allow this?

Answer by: Kristen Jourdonais, Aplus.Net Knowledge Base Support

You can allow users to view specified directories in their web browsers by making an .htaccess file in the directory. Here is how:

1. Open Notepad (or any other simple text editor) from your computer.
2. Enter the following in the file: Options +Indexes
3. Save the file as the file name: .htaccess
4. Upload the file into the directory you would like to openly have available for browsing. If you have an existing .htaccess file in the directory, enter the Options +Indexes line in the file.

Your website visitors should now be able to see the directory listing.

For example:

Let’s say you have a folder called “images” in your html directory, and you would like your website visitors to see the file listing when visiting www.yourdomain.com/images. Before the .htaccess file was added, your visitors would see:

After you have uploaded the .htaccess file, the directory will be freely displayed without this error.

Important: If you have a Windows-based hosting plan, you cannot use .htaccess files.