plugins not showing up in local dashboard

Hello All,

I’ve just installed MAMP on my computer and WordPress is up and running on my local machine.

I’m using this to test and tweak a new theme before making the switch on my live site.

All of my local WordPress files are stored in MAMP->htdocs->sites-> and the demo site is functioning properly.

In order to import my data using an .xml file, I was prompted to add the WordPress Importer plugin, which I did by downloading the plugin and dragging its folder into the theme plugin folder.

That worked fine. It showed up in the local installation’s dashboard and I activated it.

I also added the theme by dragging it into the themes folder, and activated it without any issues.

Now, I’d like to have all the other plugins that are on my live website installed on my local installation. So I downloaded them and dragged them into the same plugin folder as I did the WordPress Importer plugin.

The problem is none of these other ones are showing up in the dashboard plugin menu.

Any idea how to get this to work?