When updating your plugins with The Events Calendar, you may see an error message that says, “Destination Folder Already Exists.” For one reason or another, plugin files may get corrupted, which will prevent your plugin from updating. In this article, we will show you how to fix the “destination folder already exists” error in WordPress.
“Destination Folder Already Exists” error in WordPress
This error occurs when you are trying to install a WordPress theme or plugin. WordPress extracts your plugin or theme’s zip file into a folder named after the file itself.
If a folder with the same name already exists, then WordPress cannot complete the installation, and you’ll see the following error message:
Destination folder already exists. /home/user/example.com/wp-content/plugins/theeventscalendar/
Plugin install failed.
As the first line of defense, go ahead and visit your themes or plugins page to see if you have already installed the plugin or theme.
If it isn’t already installed, then this could mean two things:
1. The plugin folder remains after an attempt to delete the plugin failed.
2. A destination folder was created and left empty due to an interrupted installation session.
Either way, a folder exists with the same name as the theme or plugin you are trying to install. This folder is stopping WordPress from completing the installation.
Now that we understand the error, let’s see how to solve it!
Solving the error
The first thing you’ll want to do is log in to your FTP client app to find the folder. You can learn more about using FTP in this Knowledgebase article.
Now you can manually delete the plugin folder. You can find it under wp-content/plugins. Once that folder has been deleted, you’ll be able to install the new copy by going to Plugins > Add New in your WordPress Dashboard.