In a separate post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use these to easily increase your web site’s functionality.
You can view this article here:
In this tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping all plugins up-to-date, how to safely upgrade and remove your WordPress plugins, and some tips to help you better manage your plugins if you currently run or manage multiple WordPress sites or blogs.
Why Some Of Your WordPress Plugins Need To Be Upgraded
WordPress frequently updates its software (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in earlier software releases, and to improve existing features or introduce new ones.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, you can expect to see at least some new updates for plugins every.
The reason for this, is because most plugins for WordPress are created by external developers, so sometimes code or features in the new WordPress version conflict with plugins that were created and tested to work with a previous version. When this happens, there is a potential for issues to sometimes develop.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are fairly proactive when it comes to ensuring that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if required). All you need to do on your end, is simply keep 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 deleting old plugins you no longer use is part of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid any potential errors or problems.
The WordPress tutorial below explains how to automatically update and delete plugins without touching web code.
How To Upgrade And Delete Plugins – Tutorial
WordPress uses a number of different ways of letting users know when plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can immediately see how many plugins need to be updated as soon as you log into your Site’s Dashboard simply by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
In the screenshot below, nine WP plugins have older versions that need to be updated …
You can also check how many plugins need updating from your WordPress Administration Toolbar (the example below shows that nine plugins require updating) …
The Plugins page (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you which 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 sites and gives you the option to update the plugins with one-click …
Let’s start by showing you how to update plugins one at a time.
How To Upgrade WordPress Plugins One At A Time
We strongly recommend making a full backup of your site files and database before making any changes to your website.
From your main menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” area. This screen can be quite long depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site …
(The WordPress Plugins Section)
Notes:
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 screen and enter a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show on the page by default), 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 “Search Installed Plugins” box …
WordPress displays plugin information in different color backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (inactive vs. active and up-to-date vs. outdated) …
Plugins in need of upgrading have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin] available” …
Locate 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 update process, so that the process of updating your plugins takes place with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat the above 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 them all at the same time.
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Now that you know how to update one plugin at a time, the next step is to learn how to bulk-upgrade WP plugins.
How To Upgrade Many Plugins
To bulk-upgrade WP plugins simultaneously from your admin area, 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 drop-down menu above the list of plugins, select Update …
Click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will automatically begin updating …
After the update process has completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to the Plugins screen, or choose another option from the WordPress dashboard menu …
Once your plugins are all 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) …
All plugins have now been updated!
(When your plugins are all up-to-date, notification icons disappear)
Now that you know how to upgrade plugins, let’s show you how to remove plugins from your WordPress blog or website.
How To Delete WP Plugins
At times, you may decide to delete WordPress plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This can decrease server resources and helps to eliminate problems.
In this section, we show you how to safely deactivate and delete unused plugins from your 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 remove a plugin, go to your main menu and choose Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins screen, locate the plugin you want to delete 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 continuing with your plugin deletion …
Next, 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” section …
A complete list of files associated with the plugin selected for removalwill be listed on your screen …
If you are certain about going ahead and deleting the plugin files, just click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugins and related files will be deleted from your WordPress installation …
Deleting Multiple Plugins At Once
You can delete all inactive plugins at once, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be uninstalled.
Note: To delete any plugins that are presently active, your will 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) …
Once you have done this, specify Deactivate from the Bulk Actions dropdown 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 check box next to the Plugin column header to select and delete all inactive plugins …
Once you have ticked all the checkboxes next to 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 absolutely sure that you would like to proceed to the next step and remove all of the plugins listed …
All plugins will be deleted …
Managing WordPress Plugins – Useful WordPress Tools
In addition to the methods shown above, you can install Free and Premium WordPress plugins to manage your 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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