In another blog post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use these to add new features to your web site with no technical knowledge required.
To view this article, go here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping all WordPress plugins up-to-date, how to safely upgrade and remove plugins from your site, and discover some great plugin management tools.
Why Your Plugins Need To Be Frequently Upgraded
New versions of WordPress are frequently being released (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in older 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 updates for plugins whenever new versions of WordPress are announced.
This is because most plugins for WordPress are created by external developers, so sometimes code or features in the newly-released WordPress version conflict with plugins that were developed for a previous version. Whenever 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 updating is needed). All you have to do on your end, is just keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is really 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 conflicts and errors.
The WordPress step-by-step tutorial below explains how to upgrade and delete WordPress plugins safely inside the dashboard without requiring web coding knowledge.
How To Automatically Upgrade And Delete Plugins Safely – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress employs a few methods to notify you when plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can immediately see how many plugins are out-of-date as soon as you log into your Admin area simply by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, 9 WP plugins need to be updated …
You can also view how many plugins need to be updated from your WordPress Toolbar (in the screenshot below, you can again see that 9 plugins have to be updated) …
The Plugins page (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you which plugins need updating …
As well as 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 individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by learning how to upgrade individual plugins.
How To Upgrade Individual WordPress Plugins
Always make 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 …
The “Plugins” area will display in your browser. The table of plugins can flow down your screen for some length, depending on how many plugins you have added to your site …
(WordPress Plugins Page)
Useful Information:
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 area and enter a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show on the screen by default, i.e. “999”), then click Apply …
Your Plugins area will now be made more manageable with a pagination feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Search” function …
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 that require upgrading display the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Insert Plugin Name] available” …
Find the plugin that you want to update and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides streamlined plugin updates, so that the process of updating your plugins takes place “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat this process for all 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 upgrade all plugins at once.
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Now that you know how to update individual WP plugins, let’s show you how to bulk-upgrade WP plugins.
How To Upgrade Several Plugins
To bulk-upgrade WordPress plugins simultaneously directly inside your dashboard, go to the “Plugins” page and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Tick 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 your plugin list, select Update …
Click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will begin the update process …
Once your plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to the Plugins area, or choose another section of your dashboard …
Once your plugins are all up-to-date, the update reminders 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) …
All plugins are now up-to-date!
(When your plugins are up-to-date, update alerts no longer display)
Now that you know how to automatically upgrade WordPress inside your admin dashboard, it’s time to learn how to remove plugins from your WordPress blog or website.
How To Remove WP Plugins
Occasionally, you may decide to delete plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This decreases resource usage and also will help you avoid problems.
In this section, we show you how to deactivate and delete unused plugins from your WordPress site or blog.
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 admin menu and select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins screen, find the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is deactivated.
Hint: Inactive plugins appear in 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 continuing …
Next, click on Delete …
If you would like 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” screen …
All files associated with the plugin that you are about to delete will display on your screen …
If you are positively sure that you would like to proceed and delete these plugin files, then click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugin(s) will be deleted …
How To Bulk-Delete WP Plugins
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins, 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 check box, 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, choose Deactivate from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click Apply …
All selected plugins will be deactivated …
To delete all or some of the inactive plugins on your site, go to the “Plugins” screen 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 their individual boxes …
Once you have ticked all the checkboxes next to the plugins that you want to delete, select Delete from the Bulk Actions drop-down menu …
Click the Apply button …
A list of all selected plugins will show up 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 proceed to the next step and delete all of the plugins listed …
All plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Managing WP Plugins – Useful WordPress Tools
In addition to the methods shown above, you can use a range of 3rd-party tools 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.
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