How to access your website content without a domain in Hostinger

Access your website content without a domain in Hostinger by using a preview domain, a temporary domain, your device’s hosts file, or a temporary URL. These methods let you build, migrate, and review your website before your domain works. A newly registered domain, or a domain with recently updated nameservers, can take up to 24 hours to start working globally. Until the domain is active and points to Hostinger, most features on it, such as the website, email, and FTP, don’t work. During this time, a Your domain is connecting notification may appear.

Using a preview domain

Use a preview domain if your domain is not pointing to Hostinger’s nameservers yet. To find your preview domain, go to Websites, hover over the website you want to preview, click the options button (⋮), and select Website details:

There you will find the preview domain you can use.

In case you want to remove the preview domain, you can click ellipsis then Remove preview domain:

Using a temporary domain

During the process of adding a website to your hosting plan, you will have the option to use a custom domain or subdomain you already own, or use a randomly generated temporary domain.
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Temporary domains will work as long as your hosting plan is active, and you can connect your website to a custom domain at any later time. If you don’t own a domain yet, register a domain at Hostinger. To use a domain registered elsewhere, point the domain to Hostinger.

If you have already added your website using a custom domain, you can access the temporary domain by going to Websites → Manage site and clicking on Preview:

Editing the hosts file

Another option is to edit your device’s hosts file by adding the following lines:

185.185.185.185 www.domain.tld
185.185.185.185 domain.tld

Make sure to replace 185.185.185.185 with your hosting plan’s IP address and domain.tld with your domain name.

To find the IP address of your hosting plan, go to the Websites section, hover over your site and click Manage site, and go to Plan Details. The IP is shown in the Website Details section:

Make sure to revert the changes to your hosts file once you no longer need them.

Using a temporary URL

You may generate a preview URL using the SkipDNS tool.

To preview your website’s content, specify the following information in the tool:

1. Preview: select the regular website.

2. Hosted on: insert the IP address of your hosting plan.

3. Under: insert your website’s domain or URL.

4. Over: select regular ports.

And click on Go: