Install Wordpress plugin
See how to install Wordpress plugin
How to install WordPress plugin
There are 2 most common ways you would install any WordPress plugin. We will describe these two methods for you here.
Regardless of which one you use, it will allow you to quickly and simply get your plugin installed, activated and ready to use.
While this is designed to describe the steps needed for any of our own plugins, this should be same for any other WordPress plugin.
It is recommended that any time before you install any plugin or make updated, you back up your database and files.
This is different depending on the backup plugins you use, what host you are using and alike. As such we recommend doing these steps in the way you would usually have them done, or you most comfortable with.
Once backed up, it will allow you to go back to known configuration if something like that ended up being needed for any reason.
Once you do continue with automatic or manual installation of your plugin as described in next sections.
Automatic installation of a plugin
Automatic installation is the best way to install a plugin. It will download the plugin from WordPress repository and the rest is done by WordPress.
This step is only possible if the plugin you want to install is available on WordPress plugins repository. If not, you will need to manually install the plugin instead.
To do it, you should:
- Open your WordPress website.
- Head to Plugins page by clicking Plugins in the side menu.
- Use the Plugins
Add new
section to go to install plugin page - Type the name to find the plugin and as you do, you will see Install option
- That is it, your plugin should be installed at this point.
Manually install a plugin
Manual install of a plugin is great if you get the codes from support, or you download them from GitHub repository. This would usually be either for plugins that are not yet available on WordPress plugins repository or the latest versions before they are made public.
In either case they require you to have some form of file transfer protocol access available to you such as FTP, FTPS or SFTP.
We will cover steps with FTP as this is the most commonly available and is available with similar options.
To do it, you would:
- Upload plugin zip file to your plugins directory. Usually that would be to the
/wp-content/plugins/
directory - Go to your WordPress website Plugins page.
- You should see the plugin listed there as disabled. If not, go back to FTP and make sure your zip file has the right permissions so that WordPress can access it.
- Activate the plugin through the 'Plugins' menu in WordPress
- That is it, your plugin should be installed and activated and as such available to you in your WordPress website