Installation

NivoSync ships as a standard WordPress plugin zip. There are three ways to install it depending on how you usually administer your site. The end state is the same in all three cases: the plugin appears in Plugins → Installed Plugins, ready to activate.

Before you begin#

You will need three things in place before installing:

1. The plugin zip file — nivosync.zip — downloaded from your account portal at nivosync.com/account/downloads.
2. WordPress admin access, or shell/FTP access to the server.
3. A recent backup. Any plugin install touches the database; treat the backup as an undo button.

Method 1: Admin upload (recommended)#

This is the path the onboarding wizard assumes you took.

1. In your WP admin, navigate to Plugins → Add New Plugin.
2. Click Upload Plugin at the top of the page.
3. Click Choose File and pick the nivosync.zip you downloaded.
4. Click Install Now. WordPress unpacks the zip and copies it to wp-content/plugins/nivosync/.
5. When the green "Plugin installed successfully" banner appears, click Activate Plugin.

What you should see immediately after activation:

• A new NivoSync entry appears in the left-hand admin menu.
• A welcome notice across the top of the WordPress admin: "Welcome to NivoSync. Activate your licence to begin."
• A pulsing dot on the NivoSync menu item indicating that licence activation is the next step.

If activation fails with "The plugin generated unexpected output", almost always it means a PHP error during boot — the server log under /wp-content/debug.log will have the full trace. Most often this is a memory or version issue covered in System requirements.

Method 2: FTP / SFTP#

Use this when the admin upload fails because of file size limits, or you do not have plugin-installation rights via the dashboard.

1. Unzip nivosync.zip locally — you should now have a folder called nivosync/ containing nivosync.php, includes/, admin/, and so on.
2. Connect to your server with an FTP / SFTP client (FileZilla, Cyberduck, Transmit). Your hosting panel usually has the connection details under FTP Accounts or SSH Access.
3. Navigate to wp-content/plugins/ on the server.
4. Drag the local nivosync/ folder into wp-content/plugins/. Wait for the upload to complete — the folder is roughly 8–12 MB depending on the release.
5. Back in the WordPress admin, go to Plugins → Installed Plugins. NivoSync appears in the list.
6. Click Activate.

Method 3: WP-CLI#

For scripted deploys, multi-site rollouts, or when shell access is your default workflow.

# 1. Place the zip somewhere readable by the web server user
scp nivosync.zip user@yoursite.com:/tmp/
 
# 2. Install + activate in a single command
wp plugin install /tmp/nivosync.zip --activate --path=/var/www/html

The output should look like:

Unpacking the package...
Installing the plugin...
Plugin installed successfully.
Activating 'nivosync'...
Plugin 'nivosync' activated.
Success: Installed 1 of 1 plugins.

For multi-site networks, add --network to activate plugin-wide:

wp plugin install /tmp/nivosync.zip --activate-network --path=/var/www/html

Verifying the install#

Once the plugin is active, run this quick checklist:

• Menu present — left sidebar shows "NivoSync" with the diamond icon.
• No PHP errors — wp-content/debug.log (or the equivalent error log on your host) shows nothing new since activation.
• Database tables created — using the Site Health info tab or wp db query, confirm tables wp_ns_options, wp_ns_diamonds_cache, wp_ns_wishlist, wp_ns_compare, wp_ns_sync_log exist.
• Welcome notice visible — the activation banner persists until you activate a licence; if it disappeared after a refresh, you are looking at the right page.

If any check fails, take a screenshot of the failing condition and email support — we have a runbook for the common deviation patterns.

Up next#

Continue to Licence activation to enter your key and unlock the rest of the plugin.