Manual Installation of SMF

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First of all, you'll have to download your Simple Machines Forum (SMF). This can be done easily from the SMF official website.

Once the SMF installation package is on your local computer, you're ready to upload it to your web hosting account. There are two ways to do it. The first one is to use an FTP client. A good way to understand how to do that is to visit the FTP tutorial.

Please note that you'll have to create a directory inside your public_html folder where you want your SMF to be stored (e.g. /public_html/forum), then you can use the drag and drop option of the FTP client to upload your SMF install package to the directory you've just created. Once it's uploaded you should log in into your cPanel > File Manager and extract your SMF install package.

The other way to upload the package is to do it directly through cPanel's File Manager. More information on how to do this can be found in our cPanel tutorial.