In this tutorial we will show you how to Update WordPress Plugins manually, in case you don’t want to or can’t do it from the control panel. Sometimes we will see that certain plugins have a new version available. To update them automatically, we simply click on “Update now”.
But sometimes we want to have more control over that update, so that if something goes wrong, we can put the old plugin back. In that case we can do it manually via FTP. Let’s see how.
Find Plugins through FTP
To do this, you simply need an FTP program. I will do it with Coda, but you can also do it with Filezilla, which is free, or any other. There are dozens of them.
What we will do is navigate to the folder where we have installed our WordPress, usually called “httpdocs”, “public-httpdocs”, “www” or “web”. In any case, you must have these files and folders.
Once we have located it, we must enter the directory /wp-content/ and inside it, in /plugins/, where we will see a folder for each plugin.
Backing up plugins via FTP
Now we have several options. The first one would be to delete the plugin folder, in this case /hello-dolly/, to place the new updated plugin. But if we delete it, we won’t be able to go back and recover it in case something doesn’t work with the new version. So a very convenient method is to create a folder called /plugins-old/ and drag it there. As I say, this step is completely optional.
Another option would be to download the plugin folder to your computer before deleting it (for backup purposes), but this method is faster.
Update Plugins via FTP
And that’s it. Now we just have to get the ZIP file with the new version of the plugin. This file can be downloaded from the website where we bought the plugin, or from the “Download” button in the WordPress repository.
Once downloaded, unzip it like any other compressed file, and upload the folder to the directory /plugins/.
And that’s it! With this we have the new version of the plugin ready to go to war. If everything goes well and works perfectly, you can delete the backup copy that we have whenever you want. In case the new version of the plugin doesn’t work, no problem, we just have to restore.
Restore plugins via FTP
Restoring the old version of the plugin is a piece of cake. We only have to delete the folder of the new plugin and drag the backup we have made in the /plugins -old/ directory to the /plugins/ folder, and that’s it. Everything will be back to normal. If instead of having made the copy in the /plugins-old/ folder we have the copy on our computer, we simply have to place that folder again in the FTP.
In both cases, the backup will save the day in case something goes wrong with the latest version of the plugin.
Conclusion
Updating plugins in WordPress is extremely easy, but sometimes we want to have more control over the process. In those cases, I recommend updating manually, previously making a backup as we have seen.
Anyway, I hope I have helped, I hope the tutorial is useful and helpful. If you have any questions, you can write in a comment.
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