In another article, we explain what plugins are and how you can use plugins to easily extend your site’s functionality.
You can read the article here:
In this tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date, how to easily upgrade and remove plugins from your site, and discover useful plugin management tips.
Why Some WordPress Plugins Need To Be Upgraded
WordPress constantly updates its software (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in older releases, 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 WordPress plugins when WordPress distributes an updated version.
The reason for this, is because most WordPress plugins are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes code in the new WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were created and tested to work with a previous version. Whenever this happens, there is a potential for problems to sometimes occur.
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 needed). All you need to do on your end, is maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is really simple and easy to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins regularly updated and deleting old plugins you no longer use is part of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid any potential errors or problems.
The step-by-step tutorial below explains how to automatically update and delete plugins in WordPress without requiring coding skills or knowledge.
How To Update And Delete Plugins Safely Inside The Dashboard – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress employs several ways to let users know when plugins on their site need updating.
For example, you can immediately see how many plugins are out-of-date inside your Site’s Dashboard simply by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, nine plugins need to be updated …
You can also view how many plugins need updating from your WP Toolbar (the screenshot below shows that several plugins require updating) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also lets you know which plugins need to be updated …
As well as providing information about which plugins have available updates, the Plugins screen provides links to the plugin download pages and gives you the option to update your plugin instantly …
Let’s start by showing you how to upgrade one WP plugin at a time.
Update Individual A Plugin
Always make a complete backup of your site files and database before updating your website or blog.
From your admin menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” page will display in your browser. The page can be quite lengthy depending on the number of plugins you have installed on your site …
(Plugins Screen)
Useful Info:
If you have too many plugins installed and would like to reduce the number of plugins displayed 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 (by default, all plugins display on the page), then click Apply …
Your Plugins page 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 “Plugin Search” feature …
WordPress displays plugin information in different color backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (active vs. inactive and outdated vs up-to-date) …
Plugins that need upgrading have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Insert Plugin Name] available” …
Select the plugin that needs to be updated and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides simpler plugin updating, so that updating your plugins takes place “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat the above process for any other plugins on your site that need to be updated, or refer to the section below if you have several plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update them all in one simple operation.
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Now that you know how to update one plugin at a time, the next step is to learn how to bulk-update plugins.
Bulk-Updating WP Plugins
To update 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 next to 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 at the top of the page, choose Update …
And then click Apply …
Your selected plugins will automatically begin to update …
Once all upgrades are done, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to your Plugins area, or visit a different section of your dashboard …
Once all plugins are up-to-date, the update reminders disappear (i.e. the “at-a-glance” indicators and “There is a new version of XYZ plugin available” messages no longer display) …
All plugins are now up-to-date!
(When your plugins are all up-to-date, update notices do not display)
Now that you know how to upgrade WP plugins, let’s take a look at how to delete plugins safely from your blog or website.
Deleting WordPress Plugins
It’s a good idea to uninstall inactive plugins. This decreases resources on your server and also help to minimize causes of some problems.
In this section, we show you how to safely remove 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 reinstall your site.
To remove a plugin, go to your dashboard menu and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins screen, locate the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is inactive.
Hint: Inactive plugins are listed in a different background color than active plugins and display 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 taking the next step, then click on the “Click to view entire list of files which will be deleted” link in the “Delete Plugin” section …
The entire list of files associated with the plugin selected for deletionwill be listed on your screen …
If you are positively certain about going ahead and deleting the selected plugin, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugin(s) will be removed from your server …
How To Delete Multiple Plugins At Once
You can delete all inactive plugins at once, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be cleared.
Note: To delete any plugins that are currently 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, specify Deactivate from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click Apply …
Your 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 on 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 selected all the plugins that you want to delete, specify 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 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 go ahead and remove all of the plugins listed …
Your plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
WP Plugin Management – Useful WordPress Tools
As well as the methods shown above, you can install WordPress plugins that let 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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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)