When installing any premium WordPress Theme or Plugin, it is always recommended to install it manually through FTP (File Transfer Protocol) manager.
It simply involves copying the main folder of the Plugin or Theme to the right place in the directory listing of your WordPress installation on your web server.
Using the FTP manager method may not be as user friendly as installing or updating the Theme or Plugin through the WordPress Dashboard, but is more reliable and comprehensive.
Prerequisites:
- FTP Client software has to installed you your local system. We recommend Filezilla, you can get it from https://filezilla-project.org/
- FTP client has to be configured by adding your website’s server FTP login details. Usually you would need the server hostname, FTP login username and FTP login Password. If you do not know how to do this, contact you hosting service provider.
Step 1:
Download the plugin’s or theme’s compressed zip archive.
Step 2:
Extract the contents of the downloaded zip file in any folder.
Step 3:
Now you need to locate the actual folder containing the main plugin or the theme’s files. Usually it is very straight forward as the main files are located inside the sub-folder of the folder you just extracted, in this case you simply make a note of that folder and move to the next step (step #4).
Sometimes it may be tricky to locate the main plugin/theme folder as the developers may have packed their main product’s folder inside another zip archive within the main archive, or in some cases locating the product’s main folder gets difficult when there are many files and folder inside the archive and you have to locate the correct one. All of this requires getting used to WordPress Themes and Plugins, and the more you install/update the Themes and Plugins, the familiar you get with this process.
Step 4:
Once you have located the particular product folder (or main folder) for the theme/plugin, it is time to upload that folder to your WordPress installation’s correct folder using the FTP software.
Open you FTP client and navigate to your WordPress installation’s plugins or themes folder.
Please note that the location of the Plugin’s or Theme’s folder is variable depending on the web server’s configuration. Usually for plugins, it is ..home/public_html/wp-content/plugins/ and for themes it becomes ..home/public_html/wp-content/themes/
Some other example of the plugins or themes folder may be:
…/public_html/wp-content/plugins/
…/public_html/wp-content/themes/
…/public_shtml/wp-content/plugins/
…/public_shtml/wp-content/themes/
…/home/wp-content/plugins/
…/home/wp-content/themes/
Step 5:
Upload your plugin’s/theme’s main folder to the relevant ../wp-content/plugins/ or ../wp-content/themes/ folder on your web server. If the product is a plugin, place its folder inside …/home/public_html/wp-content/plugins/ or if the product is a theme, place its folder …/home/public_html/wp-content/themes/ on your web server.
Step 6:
After uploading the files, login to your WordPress website’s admin Dashboard and then:
For plugins, navigate to the “Plugins->Installed Plugins” page, you should see the new plugin that you just uploaded the files for listed on that page. Simply click the “Activate” link under the title of that plugin to activate the plugin and start using that plugin.
For themes, navigate to the “Appearance->Themes” page, you should see the new theme that you just uploaded the files for listed on that page. Simply click the “Activate” button to activate the theme and start using that theme.