WordPress Download Manager Review

Today I’m going to be taking a look at a plugin I came across called WordPress Download Manger. Based on it’s description in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory, this plugin’s purpose is to help you manage, track, and control file downloads from your WordPress site. Since I’ve been looking for an easy way to do just that, I thought I’d give this plugin a test drive and let you all know what I found out.

WordPress Download Manager Installation

As with any WordPress Plugin, I first went to the Plugin Directory and downloaded the WordPress Download Manager’s zipped file. I then got into my WordPress admin went to Plugins > Add New > Upload and Installed the plugin.

WordPress Download Manager Configuration

Upon activation, a new File Manager Menu appeared in my side bar.

The first thing I did was poke around and see what was what. I noticed they have a screen for managing your downloads, creating download categories, adjusting settings, and of course adding new files/packages.

The settings I left as there were.

I then moved on to Categories and added a few that seemed to make sense.

After that I went to the Add New File section, because I figured I won’t have anything to manage unless I add some content. Unfortunately this is where things started going downhill for me. As you can see, I created a new package and attempted to upload a zipped file of a single album of music. The file size was approximately 50mb – so nothing excessive. I tried multiple times to upload different file types and sizes to no avail. This was particularly frustrating as each upload attempt took more than 10 minutes – which I thought was way too long. I’m not on dial-up or anything here.

As you can see, my manager remained empty.

Here’s what it’s supposed to look like after you have some content in it.

WordPress Download Manager Implementation

If this plugin would have worked for me, this is supposed to be what the download would look like from my site reader/user’s perspective.

In Conclusion

It’s really hard for me to recommend this plugin right now. I was pretty disappointed in its performance given it’s high rating in the directory (4 out of 5 stars) and the fact that it claims to be compatible with the latest version of WordPress 3.4.1. When I clicked on the Support tab after having a lot of trouble myself, I saw that there was a support ticket saying that the plugin is broken in WordPress 3.4 and up. Since I’m running WordPress 3.4.1 I’m pretty much out of luck. Hopefully I can revisit this when they update their plugin. For now, if you don’t have the latest version of WordPress and this functionality is something you want, install it and don’t upgrade your WordPress software until this plugin works on the latest version. Otherwise, avoid it.

Download Link: WordPress Download Manager