In another article, we provide a detailed explanation of what WP plugins are about and how you can use these to increase your website’s functionality.
You can read the article here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn why plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to easily upgrade and remove your WordPress plugins, and discover useful plugin management tips if you run or manage multiple WordPress sites.
Why Your Plugins Need Frequent Updating
New WordPress versions are constantly being released (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in older releases, and to improve existing features.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, there will typically be new updates for WordPress plugins whenever WordPress distributes an updated version.
The reason for this, is because most WordPress plugins are created by third-party developers, so sometimes code in the new WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were developed for a previous version. Whenever this happens, conflicts 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 as a website owner, is just keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is very quick, simple and easy to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins regularly updated and deleting old plugins you no longer need is part of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid any potential problems and errors.
The WordPress tutorial below explains how to automatically update and delete plugins safely in your dashboard without requiring web coding skills or knowledge.
Upgrading And Deleting Plugins In WordPress – Tutorial
WordPress utilizes a few methods of letting you know when plugins on your blog need to be updated.
For example, you can see ‘at a glance’ 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, 9 plugins have older versions that need updating …
You can also view how many plugins need updating from your WP Admin Toolbar (in the example below, you can again see that 9 plugins require updating) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you what plugins need updating …
In addition to providing information about plugins that have updates available, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin download pages and gives you the option to update the plugins with one-click …
Let’s start by showing you how to update WP plugins individually.
Upgrade Single WordPress Plugins
We recommend making a complete backup of your data and files before updating your website or blog.
In your WP admin menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” section. The page can be quite long depending on how many plugins you have added to your blog …
(The WordPress Plugins Screen)
Useful Tips:
If you have too many plugins installed and would like to reduce the number of plugins showing on your page, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins page and type in a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show on the page by default, i.e. “999”), then click Apply …
Your Plugins section 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 “Search Plugins” field …
You will see plugin information in different color backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (active vs. inactive and out-of-date vs up-to-date) …
Plugins that require upgrading have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin] available” …
Find the plugin that needs updating and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides simple plugin updating, so that the process of updating your plugins happens with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat this process for all plugins on your site that need to be updated, or refer to the section below if you have many plugins that are out-of-date and would like to upgrade them all in bulk.
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Now that you know how to update plugins one at a time, let’s show you how to upgrade many plugins simultaneously.
How To Bulk-Update WP Plugins
To bulk-upgrade WordPress plugins simultaneously directly inside your dashboard, go to the “Plugins” page and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Click on the checkbox in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to update by checking its box …
In the Bulk Actions pull-down menu above your plugin list, select Update …
Click Apply …
Your selected plugins will update all at once …
Once all updates are finished, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to the Plugins section, or go to a different section of your dashboard …
Once your plugins are all up-to-date, the update reminders 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!
(When your site uses the latest version of all plugins, update alerts disappear)
Now that you know how to automatically update your inside your admin dashboard, let’s show you how to uninstall plugins from your WordPress blog or website.
How To Safely Remove Plugins
As part of smart site management, it’s a good idea to delete plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This conserves server resources and also help to eliminate problems.
In this section, we show you how to safely uninstall unused plugins from your WordPress blog or site.
Always create 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 reinstall your site.
To remove a plugin, go to your dashboard menu and select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins page, 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 display an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, then click on Deactivate before proceeding with your plugin deletion …
Next, click Delete …
If you would like to browse all the files that will be deleted before taking 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 deletionwill display on your screen …
If you are certain about going ahead and deleting the selected plugin files, then click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugins and related files will be deleted from your WordPress installation …
Deleting Several Plugins In Bulk
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be removed.
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 check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …
Once you have done this, choose Deactivate from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click the Apply button …
Your selected plugins will be deactivated …
To delete all or some of the inactive plugins, go to the “Plugins” page and click on the Inactive link in the Plugins menu …
Tick the check box next to 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 deleted, select Delete from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click Apply …
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 proceed to the next step and delete all of the plugins listed …
Your plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Managing WP Plugins
In addition to the methods shown above, you can use 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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"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