Where Do I Store My Themes And Plugins On My Blog?

Where Do I Store My Themes And Plugins On My Blog?

Where do you store your themes, plugins and files on your web host and how should you store your files on your own client computer? When you install your wordpress blog using either fantastico or by doing it yourself, the file and folder structure is very specific, you can’t really change it, nor do you want to. There is no room for changing the built in structure, leaving you simply having to understand it so you can FTP your files to the proper places.

It’s actually quite easy and there’s really only two places you ever need to be aware of. Having a system of storing files on your own computer is, in my opinion, actually more important than understanding where they go on the server.

Before I even answer the question about where to store the themes on your blog, I would first want to show you how to store them on your own computer. You may either be building multiple blogs to blog about your multiple passions and interests, or you will be creating a blog about one subject. Either way, when you see a theme that you like, you’ll be downloading it to your computer first, then uploading it to your web host. As you see more themes that you like, you’ll probably want to download them as well. This may go on for a great number of themes, so organization is critical.

This principle is the same for themes and plugins

On your computer, you should have a separate folder for each of these items

1. All your themes
2. All your plugins
3. Your Blogs

The idea is to download any themes you like to your themes folder, then copy them to your local blog folder when you want to use one, then upload it to your web host server from there.

The same goes for plugins. If you have multiple blogs, you will want to store your plugins in one general “plugin” folder, then copy them to your blog plugin folder, then upload them to your web host server when you want to use them.

In the image below, you see a sample of how you could set up the folder structure on your computer for organizing your blog files.

When you want to save a file, Windows defaults to your “My Documents” folder so this is a good place to store all your data. It also makes it easy for doing backups as you only have to ever back up one “main” folder, your “My Documents” folder to get all your critical data.

A very easy way to make your blog documents come to the top of the list is to add a number in front of them. Windows sorts the folders alphabetically but puts precedence on numerals, so adding in the numbers 1, 2 , 3 or more will sort them in that order, numberically THEN alphabetically.

Create these three folders

1. My Webs
2. Themes
3. Plugins

Using the number, a period, a space, then the title of the folder

My Webs could as easily be My Blogs or My Websites or Blogs. I have used the term “My Webs” since the time of websites, so that’s what I’ve stuck with.

Inside you’re 1. My Webs folder, create as many folders as required for your domains. If you only have one domain right now, create the folder and title it with your domain name. This is where you will be storing your blog themes and plugins for that domain.

Inside that new folder now, your domain name folder, create two more folders called “themes” and “plugins”

In the example above, I have a folder inside 1. My Webs called “Blog Building Basics” and another called “Former Fat Guy Blog”. The Blog Building Basics folder has been expanded to show you the contents, the folders “themes” and “plugins”. This is for the themes and plugins that you are using for this blog.

When storing your plugins, it’s a good idea to include the version number of the plugin so that if there’s ever an update to the plugin, you know what version you have on your computer

Now that you’ve got a system in place for storing your files, themes and plugins for each domain you have, I’ll explain where to store these files on your web host server.

Where Do You Put Themes In Your Wordpress Blog

Wordpress uses a very simple folder structure and you really only need to know one folder and two subfolders

This is the actual screenshot of my Blog Building Basics folder structure that I took using the FireFTP free ftp client for Firefox. I’ve only included the right hand side pane of the FireFTP view to save space. The left hand side would have shown the files on my computer, but are not required for this tutorial. A few folders I created myself, but Wordpress created the WP-Admin, WP-Content and WP-Includes. As you can probably guess WP stands for WordPress.

It’s the WP-Content folder where you will be putting your attention. Inside the WP-Content folder are three more folders, two of which you will be using, namely the Themes and Plugins folders. I’ll let you guess which one is for which.

Step By Step Transfer Of Themes To Your Blog

1. Download the theme to your themes folder on your client computer
   ie: My Documents / 2. Themes
2. Copy the theme to your theme folder in your blog folder on your client computer ie: My Documents / 1. My Webs / Blog Building Basics / Themes /
3. Upload the theme to the wp-content/themes/ folder

When you’ve first started to create a blog, having a system of storing your files is critical. Store them all in My Documents for easy backup, use the number naming system to have the files sort themselves to the top of the structure and keep your files sorted by domain names. Wordpress creates a very easy structure for storing files and the only one you really have to know about is the WP-Content folder. It’s really that easy.

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