When updating any premium WordPress Theme or Plugin, it is always recommended to update it manually through FTP (File Transfer Protocol) manager.
Using the FTP manager method has its shortcomings (it is mainly because on a live website, the time required in uploading the newer version of the plugin or theme to the server, may break some of the website’s functionality for the time until you have completely uploaded, installed and activated the newer version of the plugin or theme), but if you follow the steps below, we can minimize the risks of breaking the website’s functionality as well as any other incompatibility issues that may arise due to upgrading to the newer version of the plugin or theme.
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 latest version of 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 to be uploaded, you need to rename this particular folder or add a prefix or postfix to it so that it would not conflict with the folder name of you existing old versions theme or plugin folder. For example, if the main folder is “myplugin” it may be renamed as “myplugin-new”.
Step 5:
After renaming the folder, 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/
You will notice that once you have located the particular folder on the server, it should contain the old version folder of your plugin or theme that you are updating.
Step 6:
Upload your new version 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 7:
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 now see two names/ of the theme that you are interested in updating. One of them is the older version (it should be Active at this point) and the other is the newer version (it should be Deactivated at this point) which you just uploaded. Very carefully “Deactivate” the old version of the plugin.
For themes, navigate to the “Appearance->Themes” page, you should now see two names/titles of the theme that you are interested in updating. One of them is the older version (it should be Active at this point) and the other is the newer version (it should be Deactivated at this point) which you just uploaded. You would have to temporarily switch to any other theme apart from the two themes (the newer version and the old version). It is recommended to install and activate any other free theme temporarily e.g. “Twenty Nineteen” theme which can be deleted at the end of the process.
Step 8:
Now go back to the FTP client software and quickly rename the folder of old version theme/plugin to anything unique. You may add a prefix or postfix to it so that it would not conflict with the folder name of you new versions theme or plugin folder. For example, if the old version folder is “myplugin” it may be renamed as “myplugin-old”.
Step 9:
After renaming the old version plugins’s/theme’s folder, rename the new version’s folder to its original name. If the new version was named “myplugin-new” in step 4, then rename it back to “myplugin”.
Step 10:
Now go back to your WordPress website’s admin Dashboard and:
For plugins, navigate to the “Plugins->Installed Plugins” page, you should see both new and old version of the plugins listed but deactivated, very carefully “Activate” the new version of the plugin.
For themes, navigate to the “Appearance->Themes” page, you should see both new and old version of the themes listed but deactivated, very carefully “Activate” the new version of the theme.
Step 11:
After testing and making sure that by activating the newer version of the theme/plugin all the functionality is intact and nothing is broken, you may delete the folder of the old version of the theme/plugin through FTP. Please make sure that you do not delete it from inside the WordPress admin Dashboard, but always delete the old version’s folder through the FTP client.