In a separate post, we provide an overview of what plugins are all about and how you can use these to add new features to your blog without touching code.
To view this article, go here:
In this tutorial you will learn why plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to automatically update and uninstall your WordPress plugins, and discover practical plugin management tools if you currently manage multiple WordPress sites or blogs.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Many Of Your Plugins Need To Be Updated
New versions of WordPress are frequently being released (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in earlier releases, as well as to improve existing features or introduce new ones.
Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, you can expect to see at least some new new update notifications for WordPress plugins each time a new WordPress version is released.
This is because most WordPress plugins are created by third-party developers, so sometimes code or features in the newly-released WordPress version conflict with plugins that were created and tested to work with a previous version. Whenever this happens, issues can sometimes develop.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are quite proactive when it comes to ensuring that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if required). All you have to do on your end, is just keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is really easy and simple to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date and deleting old plugins you no longer need is part of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid any conflicts and errors.
The WordPress step-by-step tutorial below explains how to automatically update and delete WordPress plugins without web programming knowledge or skills required.
Updating And Deleting Plugins Safely – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress utilizes several methods of letting users know when plugins on their blog need updating.
For example, you can tell immediately how many plugins need updating as soon as you log into your Administration panel just by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, 9 WP plugins are out of date and need to be updated …
You can also check how many plugins need to be updated from your WordPress Admin Toolbar (as shown below, nine plugins should be brought up to date) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you how many plugins need to be updated …
In addition to providing information about plugins that have available updates, the Plugins screen provides links to the plugin developer pages and gives you the option to update the plugin instantly …
Let’s start by learning how to update one WP plugin at a time.
Updating Individual WordPress Plugins
Always make a full backup of your data and files before upgrading your blog or website.
In your main menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” area will display in your browser. The list of plugins can go down your page for some length, depending on the number of plugins you have added to your blog …
(The WordPress Plugins Section)
Additional Info:
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 (all plugins show up on the screen by default), then click Apply …
Your Plugins page will now be made more manageable with a pagination feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Plugin Search” feature …
You will see information about plugins in different backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (inactive vs. active and out-of-date vs up-to-date) …
Plugins in need of upgrading display the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin Name] available” …
Select the plugin that needs to be updated and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides streamlined plugin updates, so that the process of updating your plugins takes place “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat the above process for any other plugins on your site that need updating, or refer to the section below if you have many plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update all plugins at the same time.
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Now that you know how to update WordPress plugins individually, the next step is to learn how to bulk-update WordPress plugins.
How To Upgrade Many WordPress Plugins
To bulk-update plugins simultaneously using the automatic update feature, go to the “Plugins” screen and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Click the check box 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 pull-down menu above the table of plugins, choose Update …
And then click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will automatically begin updating …
Once all plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to your Plugins section, or visit another section of your dashboard …
Once your plugins are all up-to-date, the plugin notifications 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 site uses the latest version of all plugins, update notices do not display)
Now that you know how to automatically update inside the admin dashboard, let’s show you how to uninstall plugins from your site.
Deleting Plugins
It’s a good idea to delete plugins that you no longer need. This decreases resource usage and help to minimize potential problems.
In this section, we show you how to deactivate and delete unused plugins from your WordPress blog or 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 main menu and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins area, find the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is inactive.
Hint: Inactive plugins are listed in a different background color than active plugins and show an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, then click on Deactivate before continuing …
Click Delete …
If you need to review a list of all the files that will be deleted before going ahead, then click on the “Click to view entire list of files which will be deleted” link in the “Delete Plugin” page …
The entire list of files belonging to the plugin selected for removalwill display on your screen …
If you are positively certain that you want to go ahead and delete the plugin files, just click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugin(s) will be removed from your WordPress installation …
Bulk-Deleting Plugins
You can delete all inactive plugins at once, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be cleared.
Note: To delete any plugins that are currently 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) …
Once you have done this, select Deactivate from the Bulk Actions dropdown 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 …
Select all of the plugins you want to delete by either placing a tick next to their checkbox, or click on the check box next to the Plugin column header to select and delete all inactive plugins …
Once you have selected all the plugins that you want deleted, select Delete from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click the Apply button …
A list of all selected plugins will be displayed 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 absolutely certain that you would like to proceed to the next step and delete all of the plugins listed …
Your plugins will be deleted …
WordPress Plugin Management – WordPress Tools
As well as the methods shown above, you can install a range of tools 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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