In another blog post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use these to easily add new features and functionality to your website or blog without editing code.
You can read the article here:
In this tutorial you will learn why plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to easily update and remove plugins, and discover useful tools to help you better manage your plugins.
Why Some Of 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 releases, and to improve existing features.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, there will typically be new updates for WordPress plugins every.
This is because most plugins for WordPress are created by external developers, so sometimes features in the newly-released WordPress version conflict with plugins that were created and tested to work with a previous version. Whenever this happens, conflicts 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 required). All you have to do on your end, is simply keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is very simple to do.
Keeping your plugins regularly updated and removing old plugins you no longer need is an essential aspect of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid any conflicts and errors.
The step-by-step tutorial below explains how to automatically upgrade and delete plugins from your dashboard without requiring web coding or programming skills or knowledge.
How To Upgrade And Delete Plugins – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress employs several methods to alert you when plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can see ‘at a glance’ how many plugins need to be updated inside your Site’s Dashboard simply by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
In the screenshot below, 9 plugins need to be updated …
You can also tell how many plugins need updating from your WordPress Admin Toolbar (the screenshot below shows that nine plugins should be brought up to date) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you how many plugins need to be updated …
As well as providing information about plugins that have updates available, the Plugins screen provides links to the plugin developer sites 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.
Updating Single A Plugin
We strongly recommend performing a full backup of your data and files before updating your website or blog.
In your main menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” section. The page can be quite long depending on how many plugins you have added to your blog …
(WordPress Plugins Section)
Additional Information:
If you have too many plugins installed and would like to reduce the number of plugins displayed on the page, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins screen and enter a smaller number of items per page (by default, all plugins display on the page), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
Your Plugins page will now be reduced in size with a ’numbered pages’ feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Search Installed Plugins” field …
WordPress displays information about plugins in different color backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (active vs. inactive and out-of-date vs up-to-date) …
Plugins that require updating have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Insert 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 process, so that the process of updating your plugins takes place with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat this process for any other plugins on your site that need to be updated, or see the section below if you have a number of plugins that are out-of-date and would like to upgrade them all in bulk.
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Now that you know how to update individual WordPress plugins, let’s show you how to upgrade many plugins simultaneously.
How To Bulk-Update Plugins
To update multiple plugins simultaneously directly inside your dashboard, go to the “Plugins” section and click on the Update Available 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 update by checking their individual boxes …
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 updating …
Once all updates have completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to your Plugins section, or visit another section of your dashboard …
Once all plugins are up-to-date, any plugin alerts will disappear (i.e. the “at-a-glance” indicators and “There is a new version of XYZ plugin available” notices no longer display) …
All plugins have now been upgraded!
(When your site uses the latest version of all plugins, update icons no longer appear)
Now that you know how to upgrade WP in your dashboard, let’s show you how to safely uninstall plugins safely from your blog or website.
How To Remove WordPress Plugins
It’s a good idea to remove inactive plugins. This decreases resource usage and also help to eliminate problems.
In this section, you will learn 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 restore your site.
To delete a plugin, go to your admin menu and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins section, locate the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is inactive.
Hint: Inactive plugins appear 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 continuing …
Next, click on Delete …
If you want to have a look at all the files that will be deleted before proceeding any further, then click on the “Click to view entire list of files which will be deleted” link in the “Delete Plugin” screen …
A complete list of files belonging to the plugin selected for removalwill be listed on your screen …
If you are absolutely certain that you want to go ahead and delete the plugin, just click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugin(s) will be removed from your WordPress installation …
How To Delete Several WordPress Plugins In Bulk
You can delete all inactive plugins at once, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be deleted.
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 check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …
Next, select Deactivate from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click Apply …
Your 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 …
Select all of the plugins you want to delete by either placing a tick next to their checkbox, or click on the check box next to the Plugin column header to select and delete all inactive plugins …
Once you have ticked all the check boxes next to the plugins that you want deleted, specify Delete from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click Apply …
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 sure that you would like to proceed to the next step and remove all of the plugins listed …
Your selected plugins will be deleted …
Managing WP Plugins – Useful WordPress Tools
As well as the methods shown above, you can install 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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"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum