Where Is the .htaccess File in cPanel?

The .htaccess file for a website sits in that site's document root: public_html for the primary domain, and the folder shown under cPanel → Domains for each addon domain or subdomain. Subfolders can hold their own .htaccess, which applies only to URLs inside that folder.

Because an addon domain's folder often sits inside public_html, its requests can also be affected by the primary domain's .htaccess. When a rule seems to "leak" into another site, that parent file is usually why.

If your plan includes SSH or cPanel's Terminal, one find command lists every .htaccess in the account, which is the fastest way to spot a stray file in a subfolder.

# show hidden files in the web root
ls -la ~/public_html

# list every .htaccess under your home directory
find ~ -name ".htaccess" -type f 2>/dev/null

# show the active rule lines, skipping comments
grep -v '^#' ~/public_html/.htaccess

Plugins and old installs often leave .htaccess files in wp-content/uploads/, cache folders or abandoned subfolders. Each one is read for requests in its folder, so a forgotten file can block images or scripts long after the plugin is gone.

If hidden files are visible and there is still no .htaccess, nothing has created one yet; make it with + File, named exactly .htaccess, in the correct document root. A plain HTML site or a fresh WordPress install with plain permalinks may never have needed one.

For WordPress, let WordPress write it: go to Settings → Permalinks and click Save Changes. If it cannot write the file, paste the standard block yourself:

# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule .* - [E=HTTP_AUTHORIZATION:%{HTTP:Authorization}]
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>
# END WordPress

Set the file permission to 644. Watch for Windows editors that save it as .htaccess.txt; the server ignores that name.

.htaccess is read only by Apache and LiteSpeed; on a server where Nginx serves the site directly, the file is ignored and rules belong in the Nginx server block. On Apache itself, rules also do nothing if the server's AllowOverride setting is None for that directory, which only the server administrator can change. WebJi® cPanel hosting reads .htaccess in every document root; if a rule still seems ignored, email support@webji.services with the domain and the lines you added.