Install Contao in 3 Minutes

First: Download the Contao Manager

Navigate to contao.org in your browser and open the download page. Download the file contao-manager.phar.

Then: Copy onto the Webspace

Open an FTP client (e.g. WinSCP) and connect to the webspace on which Contao should get installed. Create a folder named public within the folder in which you want to install Contao and set this public folder as the root directory (document root) in the settings of your webspace. Then copy the contao-manager.phar file into the public folder and rename it to contao-manager.phar.php.

Next: Installation and Configuration

Open your browser and enter the URL of your webspace including the manager filename, e.g. example.com/contao-manager.phar.php, the Contao Manager should start automatically. Next you will be asked to create a user account, these credentials protect the manager from unauthorized access and the password should therefore be as secure as possible.

After the system check, follow the steps of the setup wizard. When selecting the Contao version, you have the option to select a theme directly by selecting Theme for Contao and uploading the .cto file of your theme. You can download the theme file in your personal customer area. The .cto file is located in the contao subfolder of the ZIP archive.

After the installation you have to enter the database connection of your webspace, in most cases it is sufficient if you fill in the fields username, password and database name and use the default values of the other fields. Once the database connection has been established, you can directly import the demo data of the theme and then perform the pending database changes.

Finally, enter the credentials for the administrator account and click on Add account.

Done: Installation completed

Contao is now installed, and you can log in with the administrator account under /contao/.

When you log in to the backend for the first time, you will be asked for an install tool password (this step is omitted with Contao 5), this password protects the install tool from unauthorized access.