For Windows you can use FileZilla, for Mac OS X you can use Cyberduck. Before you continue you should have your FTP username and password available (these are the same details provided to you by your web host) and have installed an FTP client. Now you will need to upload the plugin to your site using FTP. If they don’t then you will need to download and install something like 7-Zip, Winzip, or StuffIt. Recent versions of Windows already understand zip files, as will OS X.

Depending what kind of computer you are using this is either a very simple stage, or one that requires additional software. Once downloaded the file needs to be unzipped, a term that refers to the de-compressing and restoring to normal of a zip file. It can then be activated (see Automatically Installing a Plugin). The plugin will be uploaded to your blog and installed. Use the browse button to select the plugin zip file that was downloaded, then click on Install Now. Instead of searching for a plugin you can directly upload your plugin zip file by clicking on Upload: Installing a downloaded plugin via WordPressįrom the WordPress plugin menu click on Add New: Downloading a plugin consists of clicking the download link from the appropriate website and allowing the browser to store the file somewhere on your computer: A zip file is a special file that allows you to store and compress many files together, resulting in a single file that is small and fast to download.

WordPress plugins are usually distributed as zip files. MANUALLY INSTALLING A PLUGIN Downloading a Plugin When finished you can then activate the plugin – everything is done and dusted! Clicking on install will automatically download and install the plugin onto your blog. The search results should then show the plugin.

On the Install Plugin screen you can then simply enter the name of the plugin into the search field and perform the search: Once setup you will be able to press on the Add New plugin menu option: This is beyond the scope of this guide, but it involves giving group/other write permissions to the wp-content/pluginsdirectory. This is by far the easiest method but it does require that your server is setup in such a way as to allow modifications to the plugin directory.

Manually uploading a plugin via FTP – more complicated, no server setup.

Manually uploading a plugin through WordPress – medium, some server setup.

Automatically through WordPress – easiest, some server setup.

There are three ways of installing a WordPress plugin: As such it is a potential cause of problems to beginners, and not being able to successfully install plugins will prevent you from accessing the very large world of WordPress plugins.

While this is a relatively simple task it is one of fundamental importance to WordPress and is often overlooked. This guide is another in the Inside WordPress series and will show you how to install a WordPress plugin.

Wordpress install plugin ftp