In another post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use these to enhance your web site’s capabilities.
To read the article, go here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn why plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to easily update and remove your WordPress plugins, and practical plugin management tips if you plan to manage multiple WordPress sites.
Why Many Of Your Plugins Need Regular Updating
WordPress frequently updates its software (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in previous software versions, and to improve existing features.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, there will typically be new updates for plugins each time a new version of WordPress is made available.
The reason for this, is because most plugins for WordPress are created by third-party developers, so sometimes features in the newly-released WordPress version conflict with plugins that were built for a previous version. When this happens, problems 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 updating is needed). All you need to do as a WordPress user, is maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is really simple, quick and easy to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date and removing old plugins you no longer use is part of good WordPress management and helps to avoid any potential errors and problems.
The WordPress tutorial below explains how to automatically update and delete plugins safely in WordPress without editing web code.
How To Update And Delete Plugins Safely – Tutorial
WordPress uses a few methods of letting users know when plugins need updating.
For example, you can immediately see how many plugins need to be updated from your Admin area just by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, 9 WP plugins have older versions that need updating …
You can also see how many plugins need to be updated from your WP Administration Toolbar (the example below shows how many plugins should be brought up to date) …
The Plugins screen (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also lets you know which plugins need updating …
As well as providing information about plugins that have available updates, the Plugins page provides links to the plugin download sites and gives you the option to update your plugin with one-click …
Let’s start by learning how to upgrade one plugin at a time.
How To Upgrade Individual Plugins
Always make a backup of your site files and database before upgrading your blog or website.
In your dashboard menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” section will display in your browser. This page can be quite lengthy depending on the number of plugins you have installed in your site …
(Plugins Section)
Useful Info:
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 enter a smaller number of items per page (by default, all plugins display on the screen), then click Apply …
Your Plugins area 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” box …
WordPress displays information about plugins in different backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (active vs. inactive and outdated vs up-to-date) …
Plugins that require updating show the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Insert Plugin Name] available” …
Find the plugin that needs updating 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 updating your plugins happens with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat the above process for any other plugins on your site that need to be updated, or refer to the section below if you have several plugins that are out-of-date and would like to upgrade them all at once.
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Now that you know how to upgrade plugins one at a time, it’s time to learn how to update multiple WP plugins simultaneously.
Bulk-Updating WordPress Plugins
To bulk-upgrade WP plugins simultaneously 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 on 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 table of plugins, choose Update …
And then click Apply …
Your selected plugins will automatically begin updating …
Once the update process has been completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to your Plugins screen, or visit a different section of your dashboard …
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) …
You have updated all plugins on your site to their latest version!
(When your site uses the latest version of all plugins, the notification icons disappear)
Now that you know how to automatically upgrade WordPress plugins, let’s show you how to remove plugins from your blog or website.
How To Safely Delete WordPress Plugins
As part of smart WordPress blog management, it’s a good idea to remove plugins that you no longer plan to use. This conserves server resources and will help you avoid causes of some problems.
In this section, we show you how to safely deactivate and delete unused plugins from your site.
We strongly recommend creating 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 reinstall your site.
To delete a plugin, go to your dashboard menu and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins section, 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, click on Deactivate before proceeding with your plugin deletion …
Next, click 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” section …
A complete list of files belonging to the plugin that you are about to delete will be listed on your screen …
If you are positively certain that you want to proceed and delete the plugin files, just click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugins and related files will be deleted from your WordPress installation …
How To Delete Several Plugins Simultaneously
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 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 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 the Apply button …
All selected plugins will be deactivated …
To delete all or some of the inactive plugins, go to the “Plugins” area and click on the Inactive link in the Plugins menu …
Click the checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to remove by checking their individual boxes …
Once you have selected all 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 would like to go ahead and remove all of the selected plugins …
Your plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Management Tools For WP Plugins
As well as the methods shown above, you can use a number of 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.
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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