How To Fix “Destination Folder Already Exists” Error in WordPress

One of the many skills that every WordPress website owner should learn is how to fix WordPress errors. While WordPress as a platform is quite flexible and suitable for beginners, errors can still happen and it is best to deal with them quickly. Errors can cause problems ranging from a mild annoyance to an inability to use the website.

The most common WordPress errors often have a name that helps guide our troubleshooting efforts. The same is true for what we’re going to explore in this article – most Installation failed: destination folder already exists error. It can happen frequently and prevents a certain plugin or theme from loading. Fortunately, its name is indicative of its nature, which makes the troubleshooting process much easier. It is named after the error message that appears when a plugin or theme cannot be installed.

In this article, we will examine why this error occurs and how to fix it.

How to get WordPress Destination folder already exists error

WordPress has a well-structured file and folder system. When installing a plugin or theme, the appropriate .zip file is extracted and placed in the correct location according to this structure. This error occurs exactly during the installation process. As the name suggests, it happens because the theme or plugin folder already exists. This causes WordPress to abort the installation process and throw an error, which you can see in the screenshot above.

Apart from the most obvious reason (the plugin or theme is already installed), there are other reasons for this error to occur. Maybe the previous installation process was interrupted and left an empty plugin or theme folder. Or an attempt to delete a folder failed because the request timed out. Also, this error can occur when you try to update your theme or plugin and its old folders will remain.

a way to prevent Destination folder already exists the error is renaming the theme or plugin folder before update. By doing this you will also have a backup of the theme/plugin that you can use later for troubleshooting if needed.

How to fix destination folder already exists error

The error is due to an already existing plugin or theme folder, the easiest way to solve the error is to delete the folder. However, since this cannot be done using the WordPress admin dashboard, we will show you two more ways to do it: via FTP or cPanel.

After fixing the error, you only need to reinstall the plugin or theme.. After removing the folder causing the error, you can upload the file normally via the admin dashboard. We will briefly touch on the steps involved towards this towards the end of this article.

We strongly recommend that you make a backup of your WordPress website before proceeding.

Deleting the plugin/theme folder

There are several ways to delete a plugin or theme folder, but we’ll show you the two most common. They use FTP and a control panel (cPanel in our case). We will explain the whole process using the Slider Revolution plugin as an example.

The process of deleting a theme via FTP is the same as you would use to delete a plugin. The only exception is if you have to go there. wp-content/themes instead of wp content/plugins. All the steps below are done in the folder reported in the error message.. Now we can take a look at what the exact steps are.

To delete the plugin folder, Connect to your server using your FTP credentials and go to your root WordPress directoryit is usually called public_html.

At that time, to go wp content/plugins directory.

In the plugins directory, find the plugin folder mentioned in the error message. Plugin folder names are all lowercase and usually have the same name as the actual plugin. If the plugin name contains more than one word, there will be a hyphen or underscore to separate them.
When you find the folder you need, right click on and Press Erase choice from the menu that appears.

After that, you will be asked to confirm your choice. Press Yup button to continue.

At that time, you will have to wait a bit until the plugin folder and all the directories and files in it are deleted. Depending on the size of the plugin, this may take up to a few minutes.

To delete the plugin folder using cPanel, first you need to login using your cPanel credentials. At that time, find your place File Manager choice inside Folders department and click on it.

Later, go to your domain’s root WordPress directory (usually called public_html).

From here, go to wp content/plugins and search for the plugin folder mentioned in the error message. As we mentioned earlier, plugin folder names are written in lowercase letters and are usually the same or similar to the actual plugin’s name.

After finding the plugin folder, right click onand choose Erase choice from the drop-down menu.

You will then be asked to confirm your choice. Press To approve button to continue deleting the plugin folder and its files and subfolders.

The process of deleting an add-on in cPanel usually takes no more than a few seconds. Once done, you can move on to step two of this two-part tutorial. Installation failed: destination folder already exists error.

Reinstalling the plugin/theme

Troubleshooting is almost complete once the problematic plugin or theme folder is deleted. All that remains is to reinstall the plugin or plugin file. We will first show you all the steps of reinstalling the plugin. After that, we will touch on the process of reinstalling the theme as the two are quite similar.

To reinstall the plugin login to your admin control panel and Go to Plugins > Add New. At that time, Press Install Plugin button Near the top of your screen.

Press choose file button and select the .zip file with your plugin from the file dialog this opens. Finally, Press Install now button to start the installation process.

You will have to wait a bit while the plugin installs. When finished, You will see a success message stating Plugin installed successfully. All that remains is to activate the plugin like this: print Activate Plugin button below the success message.

If the folder causing the error belongs to your theme, the process of reinstalling what you deleted is similar to what we described above.. If you want to see the specific steps explained in detail, you can find them in our article on how to install a WordPress theme.

final thoughts

WordPress errors can be pretty annoying, but most of them are relatively easy to fix. Hopefully, this article has shown you that the same is true for WordPress. Destination folder already exists error. It’s not the most troublesome or complicated issue to come up with in WordPress, which makes it pretty easy to fix. If you follow the steps we have outlined in this article, we are confident that your troubleshooting efforts will be swift and successful.