In another post, we provide a detailed explanation of what WordPress plugins are about and how you can use these to add new features and functionality to your blog with no technical skills required.
To view the article, go here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping all WordPress plugins up-to-date, how to automatically upgrade and delete your WordPress plugins, and discover useful tools to help you better manage your plugins.
Why Some Of Your WordPress Plugins Need To Be Frequently Updated
The WordPress software is regularly updated (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in older releases, as well as to improve existing features.
Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, you can expect to see at least some new updates for WordPress plugins every.
The reason for this, is because most WordPress plugins are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes code in the new WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were developed for a previous version. Whenever this happens, there is a potential for issues to sometimes occur.
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 this is required). All you have to do on your end, is just maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is really quick, simple and easy to do.
Keeping your plugins regularly updated and removing old plugins you no longer use is an essential aspect of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid errors or conflicts.
The tutorial below explains how to upgrade and delete plugins safely in WordPress without requiring web coding skills or knowledge.
Upgrading And Deleting Plugins – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress provides several ways to notify users when plugins need updating.
For example, you can instantly see how many plugins need updating as soon as you log into your Administration panel simply by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
In the screenshot below, nine WP plugins have older versions that need to be updated …
You can also tell how many plugins need to be updated from your WP Toolbar (in the screenshot below, you can again see that nine plugins require updating) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also lets you know which plugins need updating …
In addition to providing information about which plugins have updates available, the Plugins screen provides links to the plugin developer pages and gives you the option to update your plugin instantly …
Let’s start by showing you how to upgrade individual plugins.
Update Plugins One At A Time
We recommend performing a full backup of your website before updating your website or blog.
In your admin menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” screen will display in your browser. The screen can be quite lengthy depending on the number of plugins you have added to your site …
(Plugins Section)
Useful Info:
If you have too many plugins and would like to reduce the number of plugins displaying on your page, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins screen and type in a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show on the screen by default), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
Your Plugins section 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 “Search Installed Plugins” box …
WordPress displays information about plugins in different color backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (active vs. inactive and up-to-date vs. out-of-date) …
Plugins that need updating display the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin Name] available” …
Select the plugin that needs updating and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides simple plugin updates, so that updating your plugins takes place 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 a number of plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update all plugins at once.
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Now that you know how to update individual WP plugins, let’s show you how to bulk-update WP plugins.
How To Update Several Plugins Simultaneously
To bulk-update plugins using the automatic upgrading feature, go to the “Plugins” section and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Click on the check box in 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 the table of plugins, select Update …
Click Apply …
Your selected plugins will begin updating …
Once your plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to the Plugins section, or go to another 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” messages no longer display on your screen, toolbar and menus) …
All plugins have now been upgraded!
(When your site uses the latest version of all plugins, update messages do not display)
Now that you know how to automatically update your plugins, let’s take a look at how to safely remove plugins safely from your WordPress site or blog.
Deleting Plugins
At times, you may decide to delete plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This can help conserve server resources and helps to eliminate causes of some problems.
In this section, you will learn how to safely remove unused plugins from your WordPress 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 dashboard menu and choose Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins section, locate the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is deactivated.
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, click on Deactivate before proceeding with your plugin deletion …
Next, click Delete …
If you need to have a look at 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” screen …
All files associated with the plugin that you are about to remove will display on your screen …
If you are positively sure about going ahead and deleting the selected plugin, then click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugins and related files will be deleted from your server …
How To Safely Delete Several WP Plugins At Once
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 presently active, you 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 check box 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 Apply …
All 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 check box, or click on the checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select and delete all inactive plugins …
Once you have selected all 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 be displayed 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 want to go ahead and remove all of the selected plugins …
All plugins will be deleted …
Managing WordPress 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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