Hi everyone,
I just tried to install a plugin and received the following message:
“Unable to create directory uploads/2026/04. Is its parent directory writable by the server?”
The plugin is in .Zip file format. I tried to upload and install it when this message appeared.
What could be the reason for this message and how can I fix this problem?
Thank you in advance for your help.
It sounds like there might be a permissions issue somewhere @JRC
If click you Site Shell in Local underneath your site name, you can try running these commands to get things fixed up.
chmod 755 wp-content/uploads
find wp-content/uploads -type d -exec chmod 755 {} ;
find wp-content/uploads -type f -exec chmod 644 {} ;
Here are some instructions on how to do this for the specific file as well via SFTP if needed:
Hi Nick-B,
Thank you for your response to my post.
I tried what you suggested but it didn’t seem to work. I am still receiving the same message. As I typed the above, this is what the site shell returned:
find: -exec: no terminating “;” or “+”
Did I do something wrong?
Thank you again.
@JRC did you run those commands one at a time or as a group? Sorry for not being clearer on that, but if you didn’t do them one at a time, could you give that a try?
Sorry about that @JRC! Can you try running these instead? I think this will work I tested them on one of my sites.
chmod 755 wp-content/uploads
find wp-content/uploads -type d -exec chmod 755 {} ;
find wp-content/uploads -type f -exec chmod 644 {} ;
Hi Nick-B and thank you again for your help and for taking the time to answer my questions.
This time it did work. I wasn’t typing with the backslash before and once I added it, the commands worked just fine. However, I still get the same message. Here it is:
Any ideas about what could be causing this?
Thank you again.
Hi Nick-B,
One more thing I found and that may be helpful. While looking at the file wp-config.php associated with the site, I noticed the following that seems similar to what you recommended in your instructions above. I thought I would share it so you can see if it’s right.
Does this help in any way?
Thank you again for your help.
Did you try the link I shared as a workaround @JRC? Essentially the permissions don’t seem to be correctly set so we are just trying to get them reset here. Since the commands aren’t working you could try manually navigating to the file and fixing it that way.
Hi Nick-B,
I tried what you suggested but still no luck. I used both Transit FTP and FileZilla Pro but neither presented the dialog box that appears on the instructions you shared. I also tried right clicking on Mac OS but the contextual dialog box that appears does not show File Permissions… at all.
Using Transmit FTP client’s ‘Show Inspector’ under the Window menu gave me some options but not the same you show on the link you shared. Basically this is what it shows:
According to what I have observed, Mac OS now requires that you right click on a file or folder and then on Get Info. A dialog box will open and at the bottom it shows permissions but the options are far more limited than what your link shows. Here is a copy of the dialog window:
Last but not least the link recommends you change permission on the uploads folder and enter a numeric value of 744. In case it doesn’t work it recommends you change it to 755. In the following step it then suggests you change permission on the same uploads folder or directory this time entering the number 644. I am confused as I believe it is asking me to enter different information for the same folder or directory (755 x 644). Am I reading this right or am I missing something obvious?
Thank you again Nick-B.
Sorry this has been a journey @JRC! I didn’t realize how outdated that WPBeginner article was, that’s my fault for leading you down the wrong path.
Thank you for all of the screenshots and details; that’s helpful. Okay, so I think what you need now is this command which should prompt you for your user password after running it, and then have the correct permissions.
sudo chown -R $(whoami):_www wp-content/uploads
find wp-content/uploads -type d -exec chmod 775 {} \;
find wp-content/uploads -type f -exec chmod 664 {} \;
To answer your question, there are a lot of different permission combinations depending what permissions you’re trying to give and to whom, 755/644 being the most common. If you’re curious, here’s an article that walks through them in more detail and how they get their numerical assignments: Linux file permissions explained
Hi Nick-B,
First you have nothing for which to apologize. You have been here for me every time I have needed help and have helped me more times than I can remember. I am grateful to you and appreciate your help.
I did try the commands you share but still got the same response. Let me share the screenshot so you can see it:
Am I doing this wrong? BTW, I didn’t get any error message and the terminal process all the commands you recommended. They were accepted but didn’t seem to have produced the effect we wanted.
Thank you again for taking the time to help me and work with me on this issue.
A couple of things here:
Can you verify your OS/OS version?
Also what type of configuration do you have for your site? Is it using our preferred set up with latest PHP, NGINX and MySQL? Or do you have a custom configuration?
Also, as a test, if you create a new, blank site and try to upload your plugin zip file into that install does it work normally?
Hi Nick-B,
I created a new website and was able to install the plugin.
OS Version is: Mac OS Tahoe 26.3.1 (the latest one available)
PHP: Version 8.2.27
Web server: nginx
MySQL: 8.0.35
Wordpress version: 6.9.4
Thank you again, Nick-B.
Okay this is good to know thank you @JRC!
Since it works fine on a new, blank site, I think that rules out a device issue with permissions or disk space and points to something like a plugin or theme conflict. Do you have any security or user management plugins on the install where the plugin won’t upload for example? If you’re not sure you could just try disabling them all as a test with wp plugin deactivate --all in site shell and then see if you can upload that zip file.
If that doesn’t work then there could be a few other site specific issues at play, a theme conflict, or something misconfigured in the DB or wp-config.php.
Hi Nick-B,
Thank you again for your help. I followed your recommendations but deactivating the plugins still didn’t resolve the problem. What can I do to check the DB and the wp-config.php file?
Okay a few other things to check here @JRC
Theme conflict: You could temporarily switch to a default theme like Twenty Twenty-Four and try importing again and see if that does the trick
wp-config.php: You could try comparing the file you have on the site that’s not working with the one from the new, blank test site you made and see if anything stands out as different.
Database: Sometimes WordPress stores the upload path in the wp_options table, and it gets misconfigured. Check in Settings → Media and make sure the upload path is blank or set to wp-content/uploads.
Hi NIck-B,
I haven’t checked all other options you recommended but checked the upload path because it was the easier for me to do since the site was already opened on my browser. This is what I found in ‘Store uploads in this folder’:
/home/qhzw9j9kbjup/public_html/library/wp-content/uploads
Does this seem right?
Thank you!
