WPtouch – Make your WordPress Website Mobile-Friendly

May 13, 2024

WPtouch – Make your WordPress Website Mobile-Friendly Plugin

With just a few clicks, make your WordPress website mobile-friendly (iPhone, Android, and more). Recommended by Google, it will instantly enable a mob …

WPtouch is a mobile plugin for WordPress that automatically adds a simple and elegant mobile theme for mobile visitors to your WordPress website. Recommended by Google, it will instantly enable a mobile-friendly version of your website that passes the Google Mobile test, and ensure your SEO rankings do not drop due to not having a mobile-friendly website. For more information about using WPtouch to achieve Google mobile-friendly status, please read our comprehensive mobile-friendly guide.

The WPtouch administration panel and WordPress Customizer allow you to customize many aspects of its appearance, and deliver a fast, user-friendly and stylish version of your site to your mobile visitors, without modifying a single bit of code. Your regular desktop theme is left intact, and will continue to show for your non-mobile visitors.

Go Pro for support and more control, enhanced themes & features

WPtouch Pro offers a variety of enhanced themes for blogs, businesses, and WooCommerce retailers; extensions that add rich advertising options, advanced web font controls, caching, and more; and of course, top-notch one-on-one support from our professional team.

For more information visit WPtouch.com.

‘WPtouch’ & ‘WPtouch Pro’ are trademarks of BraveNewCode Inc.

Screenshots

Glamour shot!
Triple view of post/page view, main and comments area. Colours, fonts and more can be customized easily.
Admin general settings
Admin devices settings
Menu settings
Theme settings

FAQ

I thought most touch smartphones show my website fine the way it is now?

Yes, that’s true in general. However *not all websites are created equal, with some sites significantly failing to translate well in small mobile device viewports.

Many WordPress sites today also make heavy use of a variety of javascript, css and image files which significantly increase load times, in turn driving visitors on data connections crazy, often causing them to abandon your site altogether.

We created WPtouch to be a lightweight, fast-loading, feature-rich mobile plugin to add a theme shown to mobile visitors. The plugin includes an admin panel for customizing many aspects of your site’s presentation when showing the mobile theme.

Well, what if my users don’t like it and want to see my regular site?

There’s a link to switch back to the desktop theme in the footer area of WPtouch so your visitors can easily switch between the WPtouch view and your site’s regular appearance.

We even automatically put a little snippet of code into your current desktop theme which will be shown only to iPhone, iPod touch, Android or BlackBerry touch mobile device visitors, giving them control to switch between the two themes easily.

Will it slow down my blog, or increase my server load?

No. The entire WPtouch footprint is small. In fact, it should reduce load, because of its streamlined approach to serving optimized content to mobile visitors. It was designed to be as lightweight and speedy as possible, while still serving your site’s content in a richly presented way, sparing no essential features like search, login, categories, tags, comments etc.

For more information visit WPtouch.com.

I notice my desktop site shows for mobile visitors, or vice versa

It sounds like you are using a caching plugin but you haven’t configured it. Please read the user manual (accessible from the WPtouch admin) and perform the cache changes are outlined in the user manual. Once done, WPtouch will work as expected.

What’s different about version 4 vs. version 3?

The biggest difference is the admin panel. Instead of multiple admin pages with settings split out, we’ve combined and streamlined the settings into one panel page.

Tabs on the left, settings on the right. All settings instantly save via AJAX, so you don’t have to save settings manually.

Will I lose anything upgrading?

WPtouch 4 is an upgrade from 3, and your theme settings will stay intact. You will notice a couple settings have been slimmed down, while we added a few new ones.

Overall you might think there’s less in WPtouch 4— but we actually removed how we showed Pro-only settings even though they weren’t available in free, along with other non-essential panes and views to streamline the product.

What’s New?

The best new additions for WPtouch 4 are in WPtouch Pro— we added support to live preview your changes in the WordPress Customizer, along with new theme and extension updates, features and more.

In the free version, the newest changes have more to do with under the hood improvements for speed and performance in the theme, and of course the new admin panel making setup faster and easier.

What’s Next?

We’ve got theme and feature updates planned based on feedback from our users, but that’s all we’ll share!

What if I’m using a caching plugin?

If you are using a caching plugin, you will need to configure it to work properly with WPtouch. If your caching plugin is not configured, or not configured properly, you will most encounter inconsistent behaviour where WPtouch shows for desktop visitors, or mobile visitors see your desktop site.

W3 Total Cache

If you have “Browser Cache” enabled, please disable ‘Set expires header’ in the Browser cache settings to prevent Desktop/Mobile switch link issues.
Go to the “Page Cache” settings under the Performance tab.
Copy the list of mobile user agents found in our list of “User agent list for configuring cache plugins“.
If you have added support for additional mobile devices in WPtouch’s Compatibility > Custom User Agents field, you must also include those user agents in the “Rejected User 5. Agents” area in W3 Total Cache.
Scroll down to the “Rejected User Agents” field and paste the list of WPtouch default user agents, adding one per line.
Save your changes.
Go to the “Minify” settings under the Performance tab.
Scroll down to the “Rejected User Agents” field and paste the list of WPtouch default user agents, adding one per line.
Save your changes.
Go to the “CDN” settings under the Performance tab.
Scroll down to the “Rejected User Agents” field and paste the list of WPtouch default user agents, adding one per line.
Save your changes.
Finally, go to the W3 Total Cache “Dashboard” and select “Empty All Caches”.

Ensure that W3 Total Cache is selected in the plugins list in the Compatibility section of the WPtouch admin panel.

WP Super Cache

Note: The native support for the free version of WPtouch found in WP Super Cache (under the “Plugins” tab) must be disabled to prevent conflicts in WPtouch.

In the Advanced tab of the WP Super Cache settings select “Mobile Device Support”* and click “Update Status”.
Still in the Advanced tab, scroll down to the “Rejected User Agents” area. Paste the entire list of mobile user agents found in our list of “User agent list for configuring cache plugins” into the field and click “Save UA Strings”.
If you have added support for additional mobile devices in WPtouch’s Compatibility > Custom User Agents field, you must also include those user agents in the “Rejected User Agents” area in WP Super Cache.
In the “Contents” tab, click “Delete Cache” and “Delete Expired” to delete pages that were likely cached before adding the new list of rejected user agents.
Ensure that WP Super Cache is selected in the plugins list in the Compatibility section of the WPtouch admin panel.

WP Rocket

In the “Basic Options” of WP Rocket’s settings page, make sure “Enable caching for mobile devices.” is deselected. Ensure that WP Rocket is selected in the plugins list in the Compatibility section of the WPtouch admin panel.

Please see the user manual for additional information.

WP Engine

Please contact WPEngine and ask them to exclude the user agents found in the “User agent list for configuring cache plugins“.

Changelog

Version 4.3.59 (May 13th, 2024)

Minor fixes.
Added: Reddit social sharing.

Version 4.3.58 (April 19th, 2024)

Bug fixes.

Version 4.3.57 (April 11th, 2024)

Minor fixes; WordPress 6.5.2 compatibility

Version 4.3.55 (October 24th, 2023)

Bug fixes.

Version 4.3.54 (September 28th, 2023)

Minor fixes; WordPress 6.3.1 compatibility

Version 4.3.53 (May 23rd, 2023)

PHP 8 compatibility

Version 4.3.52 (March 23rd, 2023)

License display issue corrected.

Version 4.3.51 (March 13th, 2023)

3rd party plugin compatibility fixes.

Version 4.3.50 (February 15th, 2023)

Jetpack media compatibility fixes.

Version 4.3.49 (February 6th, 2023)

Bug fixes.

Version 4.3.48 (February 2nd, 2023)

Bug fixes.

Version 4.3.47 (January 12th, 2023)

Security tightening.

Version 4.3.46 (December 12th, 2022)

Versioning.

Version 4.3.45 (December 12th, 2022)

Security fixes.

Version 4.3.44 (August 25th, 2022)

Minor security tightening. Versioning.

Version 4.3.42 (July 25th, 2022)

Minor menu fix.

Version 4.3.41 (May 5th, 2021)

Fixed subsequent icon jQuery error.

Version 4.3.40 (May 4th, 2021)

Fixed menu icon jQuery error.

Version 4.3.39 (November 11th, 2020)

Fixed more CSS issues that disrupted usability.

Version 4.3.38 (August 26th, 2020)

Fixed CSS issues that disrupted usability.
Fixed redirect that would cause screen error after upgrade.
Added: SMS sharing option to base Foundation theme.

Version 4.3.37 (April 13th, 2019)

Added: SMS sharing option to base Foundation theme.

Version 4.3.36 (March 26th, 2019)

Added: kinsta.com check so they can optimize WPtouch plugin caching on their hosting platform.
Updated: Tested up to date.

Version 4.3.35 (February 11th, 2019)

Fixed: Issue where links with sms protocols would get stripped from content.

Version 4.3.34 (November 21st, 2018)

Fixed: Issue where iframe height might be cut off + additional Gutenberg/block related styling changes.

Version 4.3.33 (November 6th, 2018)

Fixed: Bauhaus version bump.

Version 4.3.32 (November 6th, 2018)

Fixed: Gutenberg/blocks compatibility.
Fixed: Fixed issue with YouTube embeds and AdSense code could white screen page.
Fixed: PHP7+ warning.

Version 4.3.31 (October 29th, 2018)

Fixed: Prevent CDATA tags being stripped from custom analytics text area entries.

Version 4.3.30 (October 19th, 2018)

Fixed: Script tag attributes being stripped from custom analytics text area entries.

Version 4.3.29 (October 16th, 2018)

Fixed: Add helper file to output WordPress comment form cookie checkbox field for child themes that contain custom comment form layouts.
Fixed: Potential XSS vulnerability relating to saving plugin settings in the WordPress admin.

Version 4.3.28 (May 10th, 2018)

Fixed: TypeError on setSelectionRange JavaScript error for email field on checkout page.

Version 4.3.27 (March 8th, 2018)

Fixed: Issue where html would be output for social media links when none are set.

Version 4.3.26 (Feb 8th, 2018)

Added: Additional escaping for JS output.
Added: Additional core theme support items.

Version 4.3.25 (Feb 2nd, 2018)

Fixed: Double escaping on post content which caused certain shortcodes not to work properly.

Version 4.3.24 (Feb 1st, 2018)

Fixed: Added additional sanitization and escaping to data pulled saved to and pulled from the database.

Version 4.3.23 (Dec 27, 2017)

Fixed: URL typo.
Updated: Logic for script output in customizer custom footer content.

Version 4.3.22 (Nov 16, 2017)

New Feature: Live view of customizer additional CSS field content.

Version 4.3.21 (October 6, 2017)

Fixed: Output of script tags within the customizer custom footer content area.

Version 4.3.20 (October 5, 2017)

Fixed: Prevent stripping of form input elements from the additional footer html content entered in the customizer.

Version 4.3.19 (August 21, 2017)

Security: Added escaping to untrusted output.

Version 4.3.18 (May 29, 2017)

WPML Compatibility: Allows posts to display for chosen language in mobile blog index.
Fixed: Bug where password protected pages would not display properly with ‘process desktop shortcodes’ option enabled.

Version 4.3.17 (May 10, 2017)

New Feature: Adds default functionality to send no cache request headers when mobile theme is showing. Also adds option in admin to disable this functionality.

Version 4.3.16 (April 25, 2017)

Fixed: Bug where backslashes were being stripped from shortcode display.

Version 4.3.15 (April 10, 2017)

Fixed: PHP 7.1.2 error regarding “Process desktop theme shortcodes” option.

Version 4.3.14 (March 20, 2017)

Fixed: Updated functionality for theme incompatibility notice to be permanently dismissed.
Fixed: Updated functionality for plugin incompatibility notice to be permanently dismissed.
Fixed: Bug where automatically-chosen font colors were wrong.

Version 4.3.13.1 (March 8, 2017)

Fixed: Bug where if you dismissed the newsletter signup outside of the WPtouch settings area it would continue to show the notice.

Version 4.3.13 (March 6, 2017)

Fixed: Bug that didn’t allow mobile / desktop switching in specific W3TC configuration.
Fixed: Warning that appeared for sites running PHP 7.1+.
Speed Improvement: Minimize Bauhaus CSS & JavaScript.
New: Added Newsletter Signup option in settings.

Version 4.3.12 (February 21, 2017)

Speed Improvement: Minimize foundation CSS & JavaScript.
Speed Improvement: Reduce HTTP requests by inlining small stylesheets.
Speed Improvement: Minimize internal module CSS & JavaScript.

Version 4.3.11 (February 9, 2017)

Fixed: Better support for SSL in the WPtouch settings page

Version 4.3.10 (December 22, 2016)

Fixed: Bug that sometimes prevented the customizer from showing the mobile theme

Version 4.3.9 (December 12, 2016)

Fixed: Error message that appeared when running the latest version of Wordfence

Version 4.3.8 (December 8, 2016)

Fixed: Minor bugs and issues reported by customers and users
Added: Compatibility with WordPress 4.7

Version 4.3.7 (November 23, 2016)

Changed: Now using the standard WordPress comment form, for better compatibility with plugins that use or modify comments.
Fixed: Minor bugs and issues reported by customers and users

Version 4.3.6 (November 10, 2016)

Fixed: Featured slider now won’t show if no posts have a featured image
Fixed: Minor bugs and issues reported by customers and users

Version 4.3.5 (October 27, 2016)

Fixed: Warnings that appeared for sites running PHP 7
Fixed: Minor bugs and issues reported by customers and users

Version 4.3.4 (October 13, 2016)

Added: Support for adding the featured post slider to a page
Fixed: Missing translations for number of comments in the blog listing

Version 4.3.3 (October 3, 2016)

Fixed: An issue in the admin panel which made it appear that other plugins were disabled while WPtouch is running. No plugins are disabled by default when WPtouch is active.

Version 4.3.2 (September 28, 2016)

Fixed: Better compatibility with W3TC and PHP 5.2

Version 4.3.1 (September 27, 2016)

Fixed: Issue in Bauhaus theme related to old versions of PHP

Version 4.3 (September 26, 2016)

Added: Bauhaus 2. Updated Featured slider, may require you to set up your preferred settings again
Fixed: Minor issues and a settings bug which could cause settings to appear unsaved in the Customizer

Version 4.2.6 (September 16, 2016)

Modified: Newsletter sign-up information

Version 4.2.5 (September 2, 2016)

Fixed: An issue which causes the switch link setting to be hidden
Fixed: An issue which prevented category filtering from working correctly

Version 4.2.4 (August 25, 2016)

Added: New display option for Bauhaus featured slider
Fixed: Minor plugin compatibility improvements

Version 4.2.3 (August 8, 2016)

Fixed: Made notices banner only show for administrators
Updated: Enhanced the ability to upgrade free version

Version 4.2.1 (August 5, 2016)

Fixed: An issue which could prevent the Customizer from switching between desktop and mobile

Version 4.2 (August 3, 2016)

Added: NEW! Change theme settings in the WordPress Customizer!
Fixed: Minor bugs and issues

Version 4.1.8 (July 19, 2016)

Updated: Spanish translations
Fixed: Search behaviour in some languages

Version 4.1.7 (July 5, 2016)

Fixed: Display issues with RTL menus and some themes

Version 4.1.6 (June 30, 2016)

Updated: Autosave in admin panel is now a little more robust and optimized.
Changed: Replaced library used for off-canvas menu in some themes (now using Slideout)

Version 4.1.5 (June 17, 2016)

Added: Option to choose which page the featured slider is shown on (Bauhaus, certain configurations)
Added: For sites that redirect mobile visitors to a landing page other than their latest posts page, added option to select on which page the featured slider is shown.
Changed: Auto-expand menu section if on a page within that section
Changed: Reduced frequency of API calls in admin
Changed: Cache warning is no longer displayed for sites running W3 Total Cache if a user agent group has been enabled to pass through mobile requests. As it is incompatible with this cache configuration, the desktop/mobile theme switch is disabled for sites using this cache configuration.
Changed: Custom field-based thumbnails are now displayed in post listings, related posts, featured slider, and at top of posts.
Changed: Featured slider no longer shows zero comment count
Fixed: Incorrect XML sitemap output when Featured Slider was enabled
Updated: Italian, Portuguese, Spanish translations

Version 4.1.4 (May 26, 2016)

Added: Support for new setting types in admin
Added: Improved RTL support for featured slider
Changed: Only display icon selection tool on items already saved to the menu (WordPress limitation)
Changed: Replaced library used for featured slider (now using Owl Carousel)
Changed: No icon selection shown for pending items (cannot select icons until item saved in menu)
Fixed: Icon selector not fully overlaying other menu items when they’ve been expanded
Fixed: Warnings when featured slider finds no content to display
Fixed: Menu fields showing through icon picker
Fixed: Display of long (non-breaking) titles in next/previous links
Fixed: ‘Save settings’ spinner triggered when non-saving actions were taken

Version 4.1.3 (May 6, 2016)

Fixed: Auto-upgrade from WPtouch to WPtouch Pro when license is activated
Updated: Hebrew translation (partial)

Version 4.1.2 (May 3, 2016)

Fixed: Auto-disable free plugin when WPtouch Pro is active
Fixed: Ensure correct theme is active when downgrading from WPtouch Pro
Fixed: Pinterest sharing link
Fixed: Search forms now allow searching while in preview mode
Updated: Translations for Arabic, French, Indonesian, Japanese, Portuguese

Version 4.1.1 (April 12, 2016)

Added: Compatibility with WordPress 4.5
Added: Setting to control which side the Bauhaus menu is shown on
Changed: Adjusted colour conversion for Luma-based colouring, ensuring true value is used
Changed: Re-added ‘show login’ setting for sites that require users to be registered to comment.
Fixed: Bug with custom latest posts page when not set to the same as WordPress homepage
Fixed: Search forms now allow searching while in preview mode
Fixed: Eliminated PHP warnings
Fixed: Display of featured slider settings when slider is first enabled

Version 4.1 (March 24, 2016)

Added: New filters to support AMP extension in WPtouch Pro
Changed: Streamlined wizard experience
Fixed: Case where featured posts would always be repeated in listing if featured slider was set to show only 1 post
Fixed: Error when page was not found

Version 4.0.4 (February 29, 2016)

Added: Featured slider settings to control display of # of comments
Added: Featured slider option for more minimal slider appearance
Changed: Added styling for some rarer html elements, and updated others (ol, code, pre etc.)
Changed: Minor styling enhancements and fixes
Updated: Opera users agents to better specify supported opera versions and platforms
Fixed: Load more posts on custom posts page did not load posts in certain configurations
Fixed: Retain WPML language parameter when redirecting to mobile landing page
Fixed: Minor styling issues
Fixed: Toggle fields not saving on some server configurations

Version 4.0.3 (January 19, 2016)

Changed: Restored homepage redirect setting – thanks for your feedback!
Fixed: Menu icon selection when using relative-protocol media URLs
Fixed: Black field on blog index when featured slider is disabled.

Version 4.0.2 (December 29, 2015)

Added: On upgrade, migrate sites using the old “WordPress Pages” menu option to a custom WordPress menu
Fixed: Custom Latest Posts Page handling

Version 4.0.1 (December 22, 2015)

Added: Reset settings buttons
Added: Restored preview theme capability

Version 4.0 (December 22, 2015)

A whole new WPtouch that makes getting your WordPress website mobile-friendly easier than ever before
Added: Settings panel has been re-written and simplified into a single page, now much faster
Added: Settings auto-save— no need to click a settings save button (how 2013 of us)
Added: Settings types are easier to control, with toggles and elegant drop-downs to switch settings
Added: Added new options and controls (like controlling the devices WPtouch is active for)
Changed: Removed visible but inactive Pro settings
Changed: Simplified a few settings, you’ll probably be mad at us but we really want this plugin to be easy to use for everyone!
Changed: Now using the WP color picker
Changed: Updated core plugin assets and optimized theme & admin speed

WordPress 4.0+

You can install WPtouch directly from the WordPress admin. Visit the Plugins – > Add New page and search for ‘WPtouch’. Click to install.

Once you have installed and activated WPtouch, visit the admin page via the sidebar menu to customize your WPtouch installation’s appearance.

User Manual

You can download the user manual from within the WPtouch administration panel, or download the WPtouch manual here. It contains information on how to configure WPtouch. Please note that if you are using a caching plugin, you will need to perform additional steps for WPtouch to work as expected.

For more information visit WPtouch.com.