Local Pro is now free for everyone

With the Local 6.0 release all premium features that required a premium subscription were made free for everyone. The Pro features include Live Links, MagicSync, Link Checker, Image Optimizer and Instant Reload.

Live links

Live Links are a great way to quickly share progress as well as gather feedback from your client or team members without the need to upload the site to the server. It’s the most useful tool of all features Local Pro provides and my personal favorite.

You can easily create a Live Link for a site by clicking the “Enable” link on the bottom section of site overview tab. After the link is created you can share it with anyone but in order for them to see the website your computer must be on and connected to the internet.

MagicSync

MagicSync shows what files that have changed when deploying updates or pulling down changes. Unfortunately it requires a WPEngine or Flywheel hosting account and can only be used with those two hosting providers.

Link Checker

Link Checker is another handy Local addon which can help you find broken links on your website. Simply navigate to the “Link checker” section of the “Tools” tab of a site in Local and click “Scan for Links” button.

Image Optimizer

Image Optimizer can help you boost your site’s performance by optimizing images and reducing the size of a webpage as a result. Simply click “Scan for images” under the Tools > Image Optimizer tab and then select the images you want to optimize.

Instant Reload

Local’s Instant Reload feature is helpful for making edits to your website’s CSS files. Changes are displayed immediately in the browser without the need to refresh the page or clear your browser cache allowing you to instantly preview your CSS edits. Local also keeps a log of all CSS file changes which can be viewed under “Instant Reload” section of the “Tools” tab.

Should you use Local?

Absolutely! Local simplifies WordPress website development by offering a handful of features. Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced developer you can easily make it part of your development workflow. Use Live Links to send your client a link for review, find broken links using Link Checker, optimize images using Image Optimizer and instantly preview CSS changes in the browser using Instant Reload.

The best thing – it’s free! Local team is giving back to the WordPress community by making all Local tools and features free with the latest release of Local.