In another blog post, we provide an overview of what WordPress plugins are all about and how you can use these to easily enhance your website’s capabilities.
You can read the article here:
In this tutorial you will learn why plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to automatically upgrade and uninstall plugins, and useful plugin management tools if you plan to manage multiple WordPress sites.
Why Some Plugins Need To Be Frequently Upgraded
New WordPress versions are constantly being released (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in previous software versions, as well as to improve existing features.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, you can expect to see at least some new new update notifications for plugins each time a new WordPress version is made available.
This is because most plugins for WordPress are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes the code in the new WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were developed and tested with a previous version. When this happens, problems can sometimes occur.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are very proactive when it comes to ensuring that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if updating is needed). All you have to do as a WordPress user, is keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is very easy to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date and deleting old plugins you no longer use is part of good WordPress management and helps to avoid potential conflicts and errors.
The WordPress step-by-step tutorial below explains how to upgrade and delete WordPress plugins safely from the dashboard without requiring coding knowledge or skills.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins – Tutorial
WordPress uses several methods to alert you when plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can tell immediately how many plugins are out-of-date inside your Admin area by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
In the screenshot below, you can see that 9 WP plugins need updating …
You can also see how many plugins need to be updated from your WordPress 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 …
As well as providing information about which plugins have updates available, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin developer pages and gives you the option to update your plugin individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by showing you how to update one WordPress plugin at a time.
How To Upgrade Individual A Plugin
We strongly recommend making a full backup of your site files and database before making any updates to your blog or website.
In your WP admin menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” page. The list of plugins can flow down your page for some length, depending on how many plugins you have installed on your blog …
(The WordPress Plugins Screen)
Notes:
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 area and type in a smaller number of items per page (by default, all plugins display on the screen), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
Your Plugins area will now be made more manageable with a ’numbered pages’ feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Search” function …
You will see plugin information in different color backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (active vs. inactive and out-of-date vs up-to-date) …
Plugins in need of updating show the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Insert Plugin Name] available” …
Locate the plugin that you want to update and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides simpler plugin updates, so that the process of updating your plugins happens “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat this process for any other plugins on your site that need updating, or refer to 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 plugins one at a time, let’s show you how to update many WordPress plugins simultaneously.
Bulk-Upgrading WP Plugins
To bulk-update plugins simultaneously using the automatic update feature, go to the “Plugins” section 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 each plugin you want to upgrade by checking its box …
In the Bulk Actions drop-down menu above the plugin table, choose Update …
Click Apply …
Your selected plugins will begin to update automatically …
After all plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to the Plugins screen, or select another section of your dashboard …
Once all plugins are up-to-date, the plugin notifications 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 are now up-to-date!
(When plugins on your site are all up-to-date, the notification icons disappear)
Now that you know how to update plugins, let’s take a look at how to uninstall plugins safely from your blog or website.
Deleting WordPress Plugins
As part of smart site management, it’s a good idea to remove plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This helps to decrease server resources and helps to eliminate problems.
In this section, you will learn how to safely delete unused plugins from your blog or site.
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 restore your site.
To delete a plugin, go to your main menu and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins page, locate 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, then click on Deactivate before proceeding with your plugin deletion …
Click on Delete …
If you want to browse 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” section …
A complete list of files belonging to the plugin selected for removalwill be listed on your screen …
If you are positively certain that you would like to proceed and delete the selected plugin files, just click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugin(s) will be deleted from your WordPress installation …
How To Delete Multiple Plugins At Once
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 check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …
Next, specify Deactivate from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click Apply …
The selected plugins will be deactivated …
Once you have deactivated your plugins, click on the Inactive link on the menu at the top of the page …
Click the check box in 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 ticked all the check boxes next to the plugins that you want deleted, specify 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 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 want to proceed to the next step and remove all of the selected plugins …
All plugins will be deleted …
WordPress Plugin Management – Tools
In addition to the methods shown above, you can install a range 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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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now