I didn’t realize I could edit what I just posted and was going to enter a correction here. Now I have to put something here because I don’t know how to delete this post.
Plugins and themes are quite separate. Of course, a theme may or may not loop in a plugin. A simple example could be a plugin that facilitates a certain type of widget, but if your theme doesn’t have the facility to show widgets, then the plugin won’t have any visible effect.
So, in other words, no need to deactivate or uninstall plugins when switching between themes.
Saying that, always have a backup – I use the UpdraftPlus plugin for backing up.
Sorry , your response is appreciated but I am not sure I understand what you mean. Quite simply, if I change the theme, then all the plugins I had will automatically be applied to the new theme… correct?
Also, regarding UpdraftPlus plugin… would that work to back up to a hard drive instead of the cloud? I have no cloud storage.
Your first para here isn’t quite right because plugins don’t just help create new ways to present things. For example, that backup plugin I referred to has no visible impact at all on the way the website works.
Now say another plugin enables widgets to display your Twitter timeline, and the current theme is so-called widget-enabled and there they are, your recent tweets for the world to see.
Now you change to a theme that doesn’t show widgets. The Twitter widget plugin still ‘works’, it’s still activated, but the theme as it stands can’t allow it to do its thing, so to speak, because it includes no option to show it to visitors.
Re. your question about UpdraftPlus, the short answer is no, to my knowledge. But why risk backing up to a single drive at home, that may frazzle at any moment, when a Google Drive or Dropbox account are free? There is an option to send backups files to an email account if that works for you.
