Easily upgrade your themes and plugins using zip files without removing the theme or plugin first.
As of April 2026, Easy Theme and Plugin Upgrades is a WordPress theme plugin with 70K+ active installations and a 4.7/5 rating from 117 reviews. It has been downloaded 1.4M+ times in total. Requires WordPress 4.4+ and PHP false+. Available on WordPress.org since 2011. Last updated 3 years ago — may have compatibility concerns. Downloads are up 13% this week. Top alternative: Kirki Customizer Framework.
WordPress has a built-in feature to install themes and plugins by supplying a zip file. Unfortunately, you cannot upgrade a theme or plugin using the same process. Instead, WordPress will say “destination already exists” when trying to upgrade using a zip file and will fail to upgrade the theme or plugin.
Easy Theme and Plugin Upgrades fixes this limitation in WordPress by automatically upgrading the theme or plugin if it already exists.
While upgrading, a backup copy of the old theme or plugin is first created. This allows you to install the old version in case of problems with the new version.
Attention: Version 2.0.0 changed the functionality of the plugin. You are no longer required to select “Yes” from a drop down before the theme or plugin can be upgraded. Th…
This was a GREAT plugin and I used it for years, but WordPress core does this now, so the plugin is no longer needed. Thank you for your great work all these years.
I used this plugin in the past and recently on a WordPress 6.4.2 installation without problems. It does what it is supposed to do.
Quite useful.
This plugin is very bad not working on it!
Add plugin results in “The plugin does not have a valid header.” Everything about this theme is low-grade and they are slow to update. I have over 100 themes and this is the only one that has continual update problems and even the recommended way of updating has problems. Pfft
| WordPress | 4.4+ requiredTested up to 5.7.15 |
| PHP | false+ required |
Plugin data sourced from WordPress.org. Analysis and metrics by PluginSift.