In another blog post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use plugins to easily enhance your web site’s capabilities.
To view this article, go here:
In this tutorial you will learn why plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to safely upgrade and remove your WordPress plugins, and discover useful plugin management tools if you run multiple WordPress sites.
Why Many Of Your WordPress Plugins Need Frequent Upgrading
The WordPress software is regularly updated (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in older software versions, as well as to improve existing features or introduce new functionality to WordPress users.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, there will typically be new updates for WordPress plugins each time a new WordPress version is made available.
The reason for this, is because most WordPress plugins are created by external developers, so sometimes code in the new WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were developed for 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 this is required). All you have to do on your end, is keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is very simple to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins regularly updated and deleting old plugins you no longer need is an essential aspect of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid potential problems and errors.
The step-by-step tutorial below explains how to update and delete plugins safely in the dashboard without touching web code.
How To Automatically Upgrade And Delete Plugins Safely – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress employs several methods to inform users when plugins need updating.
For example, you can immediately see how many plugins need to be updated from your Administration site just by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, 9 WP plugins need updating …
You can also view how many plugins need to be updated from your WordPress Toolbar (as shown below, a number of plugins need updating) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also lets you know which plugins need to be updated …
As well as providing information about plugins that have updates available, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin download sites and gives you the option to update the plugin individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by showing you how to upgrade individual WP plugins.
Update Plugins Individually
Always make a complete backup of your website before making any upgrades to your website or blog.
In your main menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” screen. The table of plugins can run down your screen for some length, depending on the number of plugins you have added to your site …
(Plugins Page)
Useful Tips:
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 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 reduced in size with a pagination feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Search” feature …
You will see information about plugins in different backgrounds depending on the status of the 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” …
Select 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 update process, so that the process of updating your plugins happens “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat the above process for any other plugins on your site that need updating, or refer to the section below if you have many plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update them all at once.
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Now that you know how to update one WP plugin at a time, it’s time to learn how to upgrade many WP plugins simultaneously.
Bulk-Updating Plugins
To bulk-update plugins using the automatic upgrading feature, 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 upgrade by checking their individual boxes …
In the Bulk Actions drop-down menu at the top of the page, select Update …
Click Apply …
Your selected plugins will begin updating …
Once all plugin updates are done, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to the Plugins area, or select a different section of your dashboard …
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” messages no longer display) …
You have updated all plugins on your site!
(When your site uses the latest version of all plugins, notification icons disappear)
Now that you know how to automatically update in the admin dashboard, let’s show you how to safely remove plugins safely from your WordPress blog or website.
How To Delete WordPress Plugins
It’s a good idea to delete plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This helps to decrease resource usage and also help to eliminate problems.
In this section, we show you how to safely delete unused plugins from your WordPress blog or site.
We strongly recommend creating 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 admin menu and choose Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins area, locate the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is inactive.
Hint: Inactive plugins have a different colored background than active plugins and show an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, click on Deactivate before proceeding with your plugin deletion …
Click Delete …
If you need to browse all the files that will be deleted before taking the next step, then click on the “Click to view entire list of files which will be deleted” link in the “Delete Plugin” page …
The entire list of files belonging to the plugin that you are about to remove will display on your screen …
If you are absolutely certain about going ahead and deleting the selected plugin files, then click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugin(s) will be deleted …
How To Bulk-Delete Plugins
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, 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 drop down menu …
Click Apply …
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 …
Select all of the plugins you want to delete by either placing a tick next to their checkbox, or click on the checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select and delete all inactive plugins …
Once you have selected all the plugins that you want to delete, choose Delete from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click the Apply button …
A list of all selected plugins will display 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 absolutely certain that you would like to go ahead and remove all of the selected plugins …
All selected plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Plugin Management – WordPress Tools
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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