In another article, we explain what plugins are and how you can use plugins to easily add new features to your blog without touching code.
To read the article, go here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn why WordPress plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to update and delete plugins from your site, and discover practical tools to help you better manage your plugins.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why WordPress Plugins Need To Be Regularly Upgraded
New versions of WordPress are frequently being released (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in older software versions, and to improve existing features or introduce new ones.
Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, there will typically be new new update notifications for WordPress plugins every.
The reason for this, is because most WordPress plugins are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes the code in the newly-released WordPress version conflict with plugins that were developed and tested with a previous version. When this happens, there is a potential for issues to sometimes develop.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are fairly proactive when it comes to making sure that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if needed). All you need to do on your end, is just maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is really easy to do.
Keeping your plugins regularly updated and deleting old plugins you no longer need is an essential aspect of good WordPress management and helps to avoid errors or problems.
The WordPress tutorial below explains how to automatically upgrade and delete WordPress plugins safely without touching web code.
Upgrading And Deleting Plugins In The Dashboard – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress employs a few methods to let you know when your plugins need updating.
For example, you can instantly see how many plugins are out-of-date as soon as you log into your Admin area by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, 9 WP plugins need to be updated …
You can also tell how many plugins need updating from your WordPress Notification Toolbar (the example below shows that 9 plugins should be updated) …
The Plugins page (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also lets you know which plugins need to be updated …
As well as providing information about plugins that have updates available, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin developer sites and gives you the option to update your plugin instantly …
Let’s start by learning how to update one WordPress plugin at a time.
How To Update Single Plugins
We recommend making a complete backup of your data and files before updating your website.
From your WP admin menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” area will display in your browser. The table of plugins can be quite lengthy depending on the number of plugins you have installed in your site …
(WordPress Plugins Section)
Notes:
If you have too many plugins and would like to make this section more manageable, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins screen and type in a smaller number of items per page (by default, all plugins display on the page), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
Your Plugins area will now be reduced in size with a pagination feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Plugin Search” box …
You will see plugin information in different backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (active vs. inactive and up-to-date vs. outdated) …
Plugins that need updating have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Insert Plugin Name] available” …
Locate the plugin that needs to be updated and click on the update now link …
WordPress has done away with the loading screen when updating plugins and streamlined the process, so that the process of updating your plugins takes place “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins screen …
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 at once.
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Now that you know how to upgrade one plugin at a time, it’s time to learn how to upgrade several WordPress plugins simultaneously.
How To Upgrade Various Plugins
To update multiple WordPress plugins in one go from your admin area, go to the “Plugins” section and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Click the check box in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to upgrade by checking its box …
In the Bulk Actions dropdown menu above the list of plugins, choose Update …
Click Apply …
Your selected plugins will automatically begin updating …
After all plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to the Plugins screen, or choose a different section of your dashboard …
Once your plugins are all up-to-date, any plugin alerts will disappear (i.e. the “at-a-glance” indicators and “There is a new version of XYZ plugin available” notices no longer display on your screen, toolbar and menus) …
You have updated all plugins on your site to their latest version!
(When your site uses the latest version of all plugins, update notices disappear)
Now that you know how to automatically update WP plugins, let’s take a look at how to remove plugins safely from your WordPress site or blog.
How To Safely Remove Plugins
As part of good WordPress blog management practices, it’s a good idea to uninstall plugins that you no longer use. This reduces resource usage and also help you avoid causes of some problems.
In this section, we show you how to remove unused plugins from your blog or site.
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 delete a plugin, go to your admin menu and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins page, locate the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is deactivated.
Hint: Inactive plugins have a different colored background than active plugins and display an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, then click on Deactivate before going any further …
Once you have deactivated the plugin, click Delete …
If you need 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” page …
All files associated with the plugin selected for deletionwill display on your screen …
If you are absolutely certain about going ahead and deleting these plugin, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugin(s) will be deleted …
Bulk-Deleting Plugins
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 checkbox, or selecting the check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …
Next, specify Deactivate from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click Apply …
Your selected plugins will be deactivated …
To delete all or some of the inactive plugins on your site, go to the “Plugins” section and click on the Inactive link on the main menu …
Tick the check box in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to remove by checking their individual boxes …
Once you have ticked all the checkboxes next to the plugins that you want deleted, select Delete from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click the Apply button …
A list of all selected plugins will display in the Delete Plugins screen. 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 want to go ahead and delete all of the selected plugins …
The plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Management Tools For Plugins
In addition to the methods shown above, you can use a range of 3rd-party tools that let you 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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