In another post, we provide a detailed explanation of what plugins are about and how you can use plugins to easily expand your site’s capabilities.
You can read this article here:
In this tutorial you will learn why plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to easily update and remove your WordPress plugins, and discover useful plugin management tips if you run or manage multiple WordPress sites.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why WordPress Plugins Need Frequent Updating
The WordPress software is regularly updated (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in previous releases, as well as to improve existing features or introduce new functionality to WordPress users.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, you can expect to see at least some new new update notices for WordPress plugins each time a new version of WordPress is made available.
This is because most plugins for WordPress are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes code in the newly-released WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were developed and tested with a previous version. When this happens, problems can sometimes develop.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are quite proactive when it comes to making sure that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if needed). All you have to do on your end, is simply keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is really simple, quick and easy to do.
Keeping your plugins up-to-date and removing old plugins you no longer need is an essential aspect of good WordPress management and helps to avoid potential conflicts and errors.
The step-by-step tutorial below explains how to automatically update and delete WordPress plugins safely without touching web code.
How To Update And Delete Plugins – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress utilizes a number of different methods to alert users when plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can tell immediately how many plugins need to be updated from your Admin area simply by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
In the example below, nine plugins have older versions that need updating …
You can also check how many plugins need updating from your WP Admin Toolbar (in the screenshot below, you can again see that nine plugins need updating) …
The Plugins screen (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also notifies you about plugins that need to be updated …
In addition to providing information about plugins that have available updates, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin download sites and gives you the option to update your plugin individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by showing you how to update WordPress plugins one at a time.
Update Individual Plugins
Always make a backup of your website before upgrading your website.
From your main menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” page will display in your browser. The page can be quite long depending on how many plugins you have added to your site …
(WordPress Plugins Page)
Useful Tips:
If you have too many plugins installed and would like to make this section more manageable, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins area and enter a smaller number of items per page (by default, all plugins display on the page), then click Apply …
Your Plugins area will now be made more manageable with a page scrolling feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Search Plugins” feature …
WordPress displays plugin information in different backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (inactive vs. active and up-to-date vs. out-of-date) …
Plugins that require upgrading show the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin] available” …
Select the plugin that needs to be updated and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides streamlined plugin updates, so that updating your plugins happens with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat the above process for any other plugins on your site that need to be updated, or see the section below if you have several plugins that are out-of-date and would like to upgrade all plugins in bulk.
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Now that you know how to upgrade plugins individually, it’s time to learn how to update many plugins simultaneously.
How To Bulk-Upgrade Plugins
To upgrade multiple WP plugins at the same time using the automatic upgrade feature, go to the “Plugins” page and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Click on the check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to upgrade by checking their individual boxes …
In the Bulk Actions pull-down menu above the plugin list, choose Update …
And then click Apply …
Your selected plugins will automatically begin to update …
After your plugins have all been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to the Plugins screen, or go to a different section of your dashboard …
Once your plugins are all up-to-date, the plugin notifications will disappear (i.e. the “at-a-glance” indicators and “There is a new version of XYZ plugin available” notices no longer display) …
All plugins are now up-to-date!
(When your site uses the latest version of all plugins, update messages do not display)
Now that you know how to upgrade your plugins, let’s take a look at how to safely delete plugins safely from your WordPress site.
Deleting WordPress Plugins
As part of smart WordPress blog management, it’s a good idea to uninstall plugins that you no longer need. This can help to decrease resources on your server and also help you avoid problems.
In this section, we show you how to uninstall unused plugins from your site or blog.
We strongly recommend creating a full back up of your site before installing, upgrading or deleting plugins, in case something goes wrong and you need to recover data or restore your site.
To remove a plugin, go to your WP admin menu and select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins page, find the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is deactivated.
Hint: Inactive plugins have a different background color than active plugins and show an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, click on Deactivate before continuing with your plugin deletion …
Click Delete …
If you would like to have a look at all the files that will be deleted before going ahead with the next step, then click on the “Click to view entire list of files which will be deleted” link in the “Delete Plugin” section …
All files belonging to the plugin selected for removalwill display on your screen …
If you are absolutely sure that you want to proceed and delete the selected plugin, just click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugin(s) will be deleted …
How To Safely Delete Several WP Plugins In Bulk
You can delete all inactive plugins at once, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be removed.
Note: To delete any plugins that are currently active, your will first need to deactivate them.
Go to the “Plugins” section and select all of the active plugins that you want to delete by either placing a tick next to their check box, or selecting the checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …
Next, choose Deactivate from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click the Apply button …
Your selected plugins will be deactivated …
Once you have deactivated these plugins, click on the Inactive link on the menu at the top of the page …
Tick the check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to delete by checking their individual boxes …
Once you have ticked all the check boxes next to the plugins that you want to delete, choose Delete from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click the Apply button …
A list of all selected plugins will show up in the Delete Plugins area. Click on “click to view entire list of files which will be deleted” to review all the plugin files that you are about to delete, or click on the Yes, Delete these files button if you are sure that you would like to proceed to the next step and remove all of the selected plugins …
The selected plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
WordPress Management Tools For WP Plugins
As well as the methods shown above, you can install Free and Premium WordPress plugins to manage your WordPress plugins.
Health Check & troubleshooting
This plugin provides comprehensive checks for your WordPress installation to detect common configuration errors and known issues. It also enables plugins and themes to add their own custom checks.
The debug section allows you to easily gather information about your WordPress and server configuration, which can be shared with support representatives for themes, plugins, or on the official WordPress.org support forums.
The troubleshooting feature allows you to initiate a clean WordPress session, where all plugins are disabled and a default theme is used, but only for your user account until you choose to disable it or log out.
The Tools section offers the ability to check for file tampering in WordPress, test email-sending functionality, and verify plugin compatibility with future PHP version updates.
For more details, go here: Health Check And Troubleshooting
Managing WordPress Plugins On Multiple Sites
As discussed earlier, when plugin updates are released, the best practice is to update the plugin as soon as possible to its latest version.
What if you run multiple WordPress sites using the same plugin?
Typically, you would need to log in to every site individually and update the plugin manually from the site’s admin dashboard.
If you manage or plan to manage multiple sites, this process can become very time-consuming, especially as plugins get updated quite often.
If you manage multiple WordPress sites, you can install, update, and delete multiple plugins on all your sites automatically and simultaneously using WordPress site management tools, like the one below:
WPMU DEV’s The Hub
The Hub lets you manage unlimited WordPress sites easily and effectively from one central command center.
The Updates section of The Hub shows you exactly what needs updating on each of your managed site(s), including plugins, themes, and core software updates.
The Hub’s Updates features display how many outdated components need updating on your site(s).
You can choose to either update all your plugins at once or update them individually with just a few clicks. Best of all, you don’t need to log into every site separately to perform your plugin updates.
Update everything at once or perform individual updates directly in The Hub with a few clicks.
This can be a real time-saver when managing multiple WordPress sites, especially when WordPress releases a new version and you have to update many plugins and themes to prevent potential issues from happening.
You can read our comprehensive article on managing multiple sites effectively using the Hub or visit WPMU DEV to learn more and try The Hub for free.
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