In another article, we provide a detailed explanation of what plugins are all about and how you can use these to enhance your web site’s capabilities.
You can read the article here:
In this tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping WordPress plugins up-to-date, how to easily update and delete plugins, and discover some great tools to help you better manage your plugins.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Many Of Your Plugins Need Regular Upgrading
WordPress frequently updates its software (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in earlier software releases, as well as to improve existing features.
Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, there will typically be new new update notices for WordPress plugins whenever WordPress releases a new version.
The reason for this, is because most WordPress plugins are created by third-party developers, so sometimes the code in the newly-released WordPress version conflict with plugins that were developed and tested with a previous version. Whenever this happens, issues can 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 required). All you have to do as a WordPress user, is maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is really quick, simple and easy to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date and removing old plugins you no longer need is part of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid potential errors and conflicts.
The WordPress tutorial below explains how to automatically upgrade and delete plugins inside your WP dashboard without requiring web coding knowledge or skills.
How To Automatically Upgrade And Delete WordPress Plugins Safely Inside The Dashboard – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress uses several methods to alert users when plugins need updating.
For example, you can immediately see how many plugins need updating as soon as you log into your Admin area simply by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
In the example below, you can see that 9 plugins are out of date and need updating …
You can also tell how many plugins need to be updated from your WP Admin Toolbar (the example below shows that several plugins need updating) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also lets you know which plugins need updating …
In addition to providing information about plugins that have updates available, the Plugins page provides links to the plugin developer pages and gives you the option to update the plugins individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by learning how to update plugins one at a time.
How To Update Individual WordPress Plugins
We strongly recommend making a full backup of your site files and database before making any upgrades to your website or blog.
In your dashboard menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” page will display in your browser. The list of plugins can flow down your page for a while, depending on the number of plugins you have installed in your blog …
(The WordPress Plugins Section)
Additional Info:
If you have too many plugins and would like to reduce the number of plugins displayed on your screen, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins area and enter a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show on the page by default), then click Apply …
Your Plugins section 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 “Plugin Search” function …
WordPress displays information about plugins in different backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (active vs. inactive and out-of-date vs up-to-date) …
Plugins that need upgrading display the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin Name] available” …
Select the plugin that you want to update and click on the update now link …
WordPress has done away with the loading screen when updating plugins and streamlined the plugin updating process, so that the process of updating your plugins takes place “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat this process for all plugins on your site that need to be updated, or see the section below if you have a number of plugins that are out-of-date and would like to upgrade all plugins in one simple operation.
***
Now that you know how to upgrade one WordPress plugin at a time, the next step is to learn how to bulk-update WP plugins.
How To Bulk-Update Plugins
To bulk-upgrade WP plugins simultaneously directly inside your dashboard, go to the “Plugins” screen and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Tick the checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to update by checking their individual boxes …
In the Bulk Actions dropdown menu above your plugin table, select Update …
Click Apply …
Your selected plugins will all be updated at once …
Once all plugin updates are finished, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to your Plugins section, or select another option from the WP dashboard menu …
Once all plugins are up-to-date, any plugin alerts 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!
(When your plugins are all up-to-date, update icons disappear)
Now that you know how to automatically upgrade plugins, let’s take a look at how to safely remove plugins safely from your WordPress site or blog.
How To Remove WP Plugins
At times, you may decide to remove plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This helps to conserve resources on your server and will help you avoid problems.
In this section, you will learn how to delete unused plugins from your site.
Always create a full back up of your WordPress 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 dashboard menu and select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins screen, find the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is inactive.
Hint: Inactive plugins use a different colored background than active plugins and show an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, then click on Deactivate before proceeding with your plugin deletion …
Click on Delete …
If you want to have a look at all the files that will be deleted before proceeding, then click on the “Click to view entire list of files which will be deleted” link in the “Delete Plugin” screen …
A complete list of files associated with the plugin that you are about to delete will display on your screen …
If you are absolutely certain about going ahead and deleting the plugin, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugin(s) will be removed from your WordPress installation …
How To Safely Bulk-Delete WP Plugins
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be cleared.
Note: To delete any plugins that are presently active, you must first 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 checkbox 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 …
The selected plugins will be deactivated …
To delete all or some of the inactive plugins, go to the “Plugins” screen and click on the Inactive link on the main menu …
Click the checkbox in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to remove by checking its box …
Once you have selected all of the plugins that you want to delete, select Delete from the Bulk Actions drop-down menu …
Click the Apply button …
A list of all selected plugins will show up 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 would like to proceed to the next step and remove all of the plugins listed …
The plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Tools For Managing WordPress Plugins
As well as the methods shown above, you can use a range of 3rd-party tools that help 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.
***
"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum