In a previous blog post, we provide a detailed explanation of what plugins are about and how you can use plugins to easily add new features to your website without touching code.
To read this article, go here:
In this tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping WordPress plugins up-to-date, how to automatically update and delete plugins from your site, and discover useful tools to help you better manage your plugins if you need to run or manage multiple WordPress sites or blogs.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Many Of Your Plugins Need To Be Upgraded
New WordPress versions are regularly released (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in previous software releases, and 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.
This is because most WordPress plugins are created by third-party developers, so sometimes code in the newly-released WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were built for a previous version. When 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 updating is needed). All you need to do as a website owner, is simply keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is very simple, quick and easy to do.
Keeping your plugins up-to-date and removing old plugins you no longer need is an essential aspect of good WordPress management and helps to avoid potential conflicts and errors.
The step-by-step tutorial below explains how to automatically upgrade and delete plugins from your WordPress dashboard with no web coding skills or knowledge necessary.
How To Automatically Update And Delete Plugins Inside Your Dashboard – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress utilizes several methods to let you know when your plugins need updating.
For example, you can see ‘at a glance’ how many plugins need to be updated inside your Administration area just by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, you can see that 9 plugins need updating …
You can also view how many plugins need to be updated from your WP Admin Toolbar (as shown below, several plugins should be brought up to date) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you how many plugins need updating …
In addition to providing information about plugins that have updates available, the Plugins page provides links to the plugin developer pages and gives you the option to update the plugin with one-click …
Let’s start by learning how to upgrade plugins individually.
Update Single WordPress Plugins
Always make a full backup of your website before making any updates to your blog or website.
From your WP admin menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” area will display in your browser. The table of plugins can run down your screen for a while, depending on the number of plugins you have added to your site …
(Plugins Section)
Useful Tips:
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 (all plugins show on the screen by default, i.e. “999”), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
Your Plugins page 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” feature …
WordPress displays information about plugins in different backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (active vs. inactive and out-of-date vs up-to-date) …
Plugins that need upgrading display the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin Name] available” …
Locate 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 the process of updating your plugins takes place 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 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 upgrade individual WP plugins, let’s show you how to upgrade many WordPress plugins simultaneously.
How To Upgrade Several WordPress Plugins Simultaneously
To upgrade multiple plugins in one go from your admin area, go to the “Plugins” page and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Tick the checkbox in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to update by checking their individual boxes …
In the Bulk Actions dropdown menu above your plugin table, select Update …
And then click Apply …
Your selected plugins will begin updating …
Once all plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to your 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” notices no longer display on your screen, toolbar and menus) …
You have updated all plugins on your site to their latest version!
(When your site or blog uses the latest version of all plugins, notification icons disappear)
Now that you know how to upgrade WP inside the dashboard, let’s show you how to safely delete plugins safely from your WordPress site.
Deleting Plugins
Occasionally, you may want to delete plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This can help to conserve server resources and help to minimize causes of problems.
In this section, you will learn how to delete unused plugins from your WordPress site or blog.
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 delete a plugin, go to your WP admin menu and choose Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins section, locate the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is inactive.
Hint: Inactive plugins are listed in a different colored background than active plugins and show an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, then click on Deactivate before proceeding …
Once you have deactivated the plugin, click Delete …
If you want to browse 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 …
All files associated with the plugin selected for removalwill display on your screen …
If you are certain about going ahead and deleting these plugin files, then click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugin(s) will be deleted …
How To Bulk-Delete Plugins
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be uninstalled.
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) …
Once you have done this, choose Deactivate from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click the Apply button …
The 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 …
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 its box …
Once you have selected all of the plugins that you want deleted, select Delete from the Bulk Actions dropdown 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 would like to proceed to the next step and delete all of the selected plugins …
Your plugins will be deleted …
WordPress Management Tools For WordPress Plugins
In addition to the methods shown above, you can use WordPress plugins that let you 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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