In a previous blog post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use these to easily expand your web site’s functionality.
You can read this article here:
In this tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping all plugins up-to-date, how to upgrade and delete plugins, and some great tips to help you better manage your plugins.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Many Plugins Need Frequent Upgrading
New versions of WordPress are regularly released (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in previous versions, and to improve existing features or introduce new ones.
Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, you can expect to see at least some new new update notices for WordPress plugins each time a new version of WordPress is made available.
The reason for this, is because most WordPress plugins are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes code or features in the new WordPress version conflict with plugins that were developed and tested with 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 very 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 on your end, is simply keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is very simple to do.
Keeping your plugins up-to-date and removing old plugins you no longer need is part of good WordPress management and helps to avoid any potential errors or problems.
The WordPress tutorial below explains how to upgrade and delete plugins with no web programming knowledge required.
Upgrading And Deleting Plugins Safely – Tutorial
WordPress utilizes a few ways to inform you when plugins need updating.
For example, you can see ‘at a glance’ how many plugins are out-of-date from your Site’s Dashboard by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, you can see that nine plugins need to be updated …
You can also tell how many plugins need updating from your WordPress Toolbar (as shown below, nine plugins should be brought up to date) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also lets you know which plugins need to be updated …
In addition to providing information about plugins that have available updates, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin developer pages and gives you the option to update your plugins with one-click …
Let’s start by learning how to update individual plugins.
How To Update Single Plugins
We recommend performing a backup of your website before upgrading your website.
In your WP admin menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” area will display in your browser. The list of plugins can flow down your page for some length, depending on how many plugins you have installed on your blog …
(Plugins Section)
Useful Information:
If you have too many plugins installed and would like to reduce the number of plugins showing on the screen, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins page and enter a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show on the screen by default), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
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” field …
WordPress displays plugin information in different color backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (active vs. inactive and up-to-date vs. out-of-date) …
Plugins in need of updating have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin Name] available” …
Find the plugin that needs to be updated 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 area …
Repeat this process for any other plugins on your site that need to be updated, or see the section below if you have many plugins that are out-of-date and would like to upgrade all plugins in one simple operation.
***
Now that you know how to update individual WP plugins, the next step is to learn how to bulk-upgrade plugins.
How To Upgrade Various WP Plugins
To update multiple plugins in a single operation 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 …
Tick the check box in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to upgrade by checking their individual boxes …
In the Bulk Actions dropdown menu at the top of the page, select Update …
And then click Apply …
Your selected plugins will automatically begin updating …
Once all plugin upgrades are done, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to the Plugins screen, or go to another 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” messages 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, notification icons no longer show)
Now that you know how to automatically update your in the admin dashboard, it’s time to learn how to safely delete plugins safely from your site or blog.
Deleting Plugins
Occasionally, you may decide to remove WP plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This helps to conserve resources on your server and also eliminate causes of problems.
In this section, we show you how to delete unused plugins from your 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 remove a plugin, go to your main menu and choose Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins screen, find the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is deactivated.
Hint: Inactive plugins have a different background color than active plugins and show an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, click on Deactivate before continuing …
Click on Delete …
If you need to review a list of all the files that will be deleted before going ahead with the next step, then click on the “Click to view entire list of files which will be deleted” link in the “Delete Plugin” page …
All files belonging to the plugin selected for removalwill display on your screen …
If you are absolutely sure about going ahead and deleting the plugin files, just click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugin(s) will be deleted from your server …
How To Safely Bulk-Delete WP Plugins
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins on your site, 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 checkbox, or selecting the checkbox 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 pull-down menu …
Click Apply …
Your 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 on the main menu …
Tick the check box in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to remove by checking its box …
Once you have ticked all the check boxes next to the plugins that you want deleted, select Delete from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click Apply …
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 remove all of the selected plugins …
The plugins will be deleted …
Managing WordPress Plugins – Useful Tools
In addition to the methods shown above, you can install other WordPress plugins 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.
***
"I love the way your email series "Infinite Web Content Creation Training Series" is documented and presented. It is very absorbing and captivating. The links and tutorials are interesting and educational. This has motivated me to rewrite my content following the concepts I am learning from the email series." - Mani Raju, www.fortuneinewaste.com