How To Install World of Warcraft Addons
80World of Warcraft addons can really greatly help improve your game play but can sometimes be a pain in order to install and get working properly. Here I will walk you step by step showing you how to install WoW addons. Also note that I will show a specific addon to install but you install all of them the same way.
Places To Download Addons
There are several places that you can go to download WoW addons and while I'm not going to go over them one by one a nice short list of places is included below that I use.
- World of Warcraft Addons | World of Warcraft @ Curse.com
Thousands of player-submitted World of Warcraft addons available to download for free - World of Warcraft Addons - WowAce.com
List of all the available WoW addons using the Ace libraries.
Find/Download The Addon
This step is pretty easy. If you are reading this I'm sure you have already identified which addon(s) that you want to get and using the above links I'm sure you have already downloaded them. If not, just go through and download the zipped file for the addon you want. Those 2 sites listed above make it easy to find and download the zip files, which contain the addon.
Extract (Unzip) The File You Downloaded
For this part I'm going to assume you downloaded the file to your desktop. The first thing you should always do after downloading something from the internet is to run your virus scan software to insure there are no virus/keyloggers hiding in the zip file.
Now we are ready to unzip or extract the files. In this example I use Winzip to extract the files but you can use whatever program you wish to unzip the files. For Winzip, just right-click on the addon file and choose "Extract To <Filename>".
After a few seconds after extracting it will be finished and a new folder is created with the same name as the zip file that we started with.
Move WoW Addon Files to World of Warcraft Directory
Now we are ready to move the addon files that we extracted to the proper location in the World of Warcraft directory. First we must copy all the files in the folder that was just created. We do this by holding Shift then clicking on the first folder and then while still holding Shift we click on the last folder which highlights all of them. Next right-click and select "Copy".
Next, you want to navigate to your World of Warcraft addons folder, which is usually in "C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft\Interface\AddOns\" assuming you selected the default location when you installed WoW. Now we just right-click and select "Paste" and that will paste in the Addon files that we copied earlier.
There we go! We have successfully put the addon files in the right place. For a lot of people this is where 99% of the problems that come up are because they didn't put them in the proper place.
Check In-Game To Make Sure Properly Installed
Now we just have to load up World of Warcraft and check on the character selection screen to make sure our addon is there and not out of date. On a side note, an addon usually becomes "Out of Date" whenever a new patch is introduced in the game. If you just downloaded the addon files from the places listed above you will not have this problem.
After you start up WoW on your character selection screen you should see a button that says "Addons" in the bottom left corner.
Now, click the button that says "Addons" and it will bring up the addon menu. The menu allows you to manage all the addons you have installed. You can turn addons on or off for specific characters and you can even load out of date addons if you want.
As you can see I have quite a few addons installed and after you get the hang of installing them yourself you probably will to. I hope this really has helped you out a whole lot. If you would like to see a video of this process put together check out the video below and don't forget to leave comments or suggestions.
vote upvote downshareprintflag
- Useful (10)
- Funny
- Awesome (1)
- Beautiful
- Interesting (1)
CommentsLoading...
Hey, I added on the gatehrer add on from curse.com before the last update. I need to uninstall it but can't find it anywhere. So consequently I keep getting game errors. Any advice? My e-mail is garydeen21@hotmail.com
thanks
im always haveing a problem that when i install a ui compiled set that its too small and looks nothing like the pictures do...
any suggestions?
hey when i look for C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft\Interface\AddOns\ it says thers no such folder
If you cannot find the World of Warcraft folder, right click on the game icon that is on your desktop and choose "Open File Location"...that should bring you exactly where the main folder is even if you can't remember where you saved it.
excellent explanation to help people in installing and updating their addon for world of warcraft, excellent job.
Hey....I have had the addon called carbonite for a few months but when we just had that latest patch on wow.....now carbonite no longer works. All I had on my screen when i logged in.....was when i clicked on the map it was blank. So I took carbonite out of the addon box on wow and tried to reinstall it. I downloaded it exactly how you showed but it is not showing up in wow???
i installed the file and did all of the steps and stuff but when i open WOW the addons button isn't there. any idea why?
I don't have an addons button either.
I've been having problems with my addons recently too. It happened while i was playing, suddenly QuestHelper stopped working. After that, i restarted the game and my addons button on the interface menu disappeared.
I've tried deleting the addon folder and reinstalling all the addons, i even tried reinstalling the game from scratch, and still no success.
I've been reading Blizzard's forums (since i saw a lot of people have had the same sudden problem) and they haven't offered a viable solution (i, at least, have tried everything they advised).
As a note, i'm using Windows Vista, my copy of world of warcraft is not in the C:/Program Files folder, it's on another partition.
Thanks soo much....it helped me loads! and I'm new to WoW and it reall yhelped me with the addon...thanks for this website!
great stuff , been trying for ages to install my new addon
Thank you so much for posting this. I could NOT figure out how to get my addons to work until I read this. This helped a ton.
Thanks the vidieo helped alot man it was great the directions from the video and written directions helped mend the confusing parts that i could not understand thanks alot
I am having the same problem with the add ons, after installinh 3.0.8 none of them are working and the button on the interface menu has gone.
Does anyone know how to solve this?
i dont find the addons folder, i have windos vista and i installed the gam on the other partition, but i cant find it
I'm having the same problem as Diana... finally found the Addons folder (in a different location than described) but cannot see the Addons Button... Help?
hey ya same deal my Addon button in the character selcection screen is gone what the heck? does it only show up if u have extra addons ? or is it a bug? i mean i could c it prior via the last patch and now its gone ? anyone got the downlow?
yea, i have the same problem as the guy who DOESNT HAVE AN INTERFACE FILE!!! ahhhhh. how frustrating, some1 please help. give me an e-mail and kelli112687@gmail.com plzzzzzzzzz
Hey!
I got this problem too that "addons" text is not shown when am logging in to server, even i do exactly as this page tells me to do.. i SOLVE it this way ----> i got MANY addons i try to copy-paste at the same time to interface/addons folder, not work like this to me...i copyed JUST ONE addon and do the same thing that this page tells to do--->log in and WAHOO there it was, the "ADDONS" text is showing! I logged out and copy-pasted all the rest addons i wanted to "INTERFACE/ADDONS" folder. ---> log in and go "addons", mark the load out of date addons and ENJOY!
Hope this helped you out my friends!! TELL IT HERE IF IT WORKS ON YOU PLZ!
Windows Vista installed WOW in a differnet location than Windows XP. To addons for Vista go to C:\Users\Public\Games\World of Warcraft\Interface\Addons
hi everyone
first thanks for the walkthrough. muchly appreciated.
seconadly, i had the same problem with the 'addons' button disappearing.
Seimi88's explanation works a treat, thank buddy. you need to allow the game to load the addons one at a time, and when you want to do the next one, exit out of the game completely (not just to the login screen, close the game down, and then repeat the installation process on this page for your next addon).
i cant get an addon button next to my charater select screen how do i make it show up?
im confused
ok seriously... this is a good guide but i cant find anything past the ubzipping part. i have searched my wow folders like crazy for the wow addons file and the only files i see are installer, installer tomes and stuff. no add file or anything. nothing inside the files either. i play on a windows vista so idk if theres a guide for that or not.not a computer wiz like most of you are so some more info would be a little nicer
yeah, this would be helpful if I could actually get the "add on" button to pop up on my character screen. Still no luck - any other suggestions?
Thanks found this a big help.. Finally got over my curse client problems :)
I got it installed,and checked the add ons,did all you said,but it isnt even showing up in my inworld.Once I get loaded and ready to kick butt,I see no new interfacing at all.
thanks for the walk through it really helped
ARGH! My AddOn Button is not coming up! Version: Cataclysm V 3.0.0 any help??
same problem , addon button is not apperaing in the game after all that , any ideas ?
Followed the information on here the best i could but i had no addon button, turns out that my problem was that the folder i extracted from the curse site had another folder inside it, i coppied and pasted this inner folder ouside and got the addon button.
hope this helps.
I've watched the video and done the "step-by-step" guide into downloading and putting the addons into the correct file, i can't unerstand why but for somereason the addons are not showing on my game mainpage so basically aren't working, i've tried with a few different addons and this is still the case, any suggestions? my email is - mol2010@hotmail.co.uk -
is this for pc only? i did this on mac but the addons are not appearing :( any help?
i have problem with addon...i copied like u do...but i cant see ant addon button at character selection screen..u know what the problem..?thanx
Hoch 3 years ago
Great job with the faq. If somebody didnt know how to install addons b4 they shouldnt have a problem after reading this. Kudos