In a previous article, we provide a detailed explanation of what WP plugins are about and how you can use these to easily add new features to your site without editing code.
You can read this article here:
In this tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping plugins up-to-date, how to update and uninstall plugins, and discover practical tools to help you better manage your plugins if you own or manage multiple WordPress sites.
Why Your Plugins Need Regular Upgrading
The WordPress software is constantly updated (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in older releases, and to improve existing features or introduce new ones.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, you can expect to see at least some new new update notifications for plugins whenever WordPress releases a new version.
This is because most WordPress plugins are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes code in the new WordPress version conflict with plugins that were developed and tested with a previous version. Whenever this happens, there is a potential for issues 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 updating is needed). All you have to do as a website owner, is just keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is really simple, quick and easy to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date and removing old plugins you no longer need is part of good WordPress management and helps to avoid potential errors or problems.
The tutorial below explains how to update and delete plugins safely without touching web code.
How To Automatically Upgrade And Delete Plugins From The WP Dashboard – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress employs a number of different ways to alert users when plugins need updating.
For example, you can see how many plugins are out-of-date inside your Admin area by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, nine plugins are out of date and need updating …
You can also tell how many plugins need updating from your WordPress Toolbar (in the example below, you can again see that 9 plugins need updating) …
The Plugins page (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also lets you know which plugins need to be updated …
As well as providing information about which plugins have updates available, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin developer sites and gives you the option to update the plugin instantly …
Let’s start by learning how to upgrade one WordPress plugin at a time.
Upgrading Individual Plugins
Always make a complete backup of your site files and database before updating your website.
In your WP admin menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” area will display in your browser. This page can be quite lengthy depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site …
(Plugins Section)
Tips:
If you have too many plugins and would like to reduce the number of plugins showing 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 (all plugins show on the screen by default), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
Your Plugins page 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 “Plugin Search” field …
You will see information about plugins in different color backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (inactive vs. active and out-of-date vs up-to-date) …
Plugins in need of upgrading have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin] available” …
Locate the plugin that needs updating and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides smooth & fast plugin updates, 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 updating, or see the section below if you have several plugins that are out-of-date and would like to upgrade all plugins in one simple operation.
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Now that you know how to update individual plugins, it’s time to learn how to update many plugins simultaneously.
How To Update Several WordPress Plugins Simultaneously
To update multiple plugins at the same time from your admin area, go to the “Plugins” screen and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Click the checkbox in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to update by checking its box …
In the Bulk Actions dropdown menu at the top of the page, choose Update …
Click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will begin to update automatically …
After all plugin upgrades are done, 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 will 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 plugins on your site are up-to-date, update notices do not display)
Now that you know how to automatically upgrade your inside the WP dashboard, let’s take a look at how to safely uninstall plugins from your WordPress blog or website.
Deleting Plugins
It’s a good idea to remove plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This can help to conserve resources on your server and also eliminates problems.
In this section, you will learn how to safely delete unused plugins from your site or blog.
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 reinstall your site.
To delete a plugin, go to your main menu and select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins area, locate the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is inactive.
Hint: Inactive plugins are listed in 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 continuing with your plugin deletion …
Once you have deactivated the plugin, click Delete …
If you need to have a look at all the files that will be deleted before proceeding, then click on the “Click to view entire list of files which will be deleted” link in the “Delete Plugin” screen …
The entire list of files belonging to the plugin selected for deletionwill display on your screen …
If you are absolutely sure that you would like to go ahead and delete these plugin, just click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugins and related files will be removed from your server …
How To Safely 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 check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …
Next, choose Deactivate from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click Apply …
Your 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 in the Plugins menu …
Click the checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to delete by checking their individual boxes …
Once you have ticked all the check boxes next to the plugins that you want to delete, choose Delete from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click Apply …
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 delete all of the plugins listed …
All plugins will be deleted …
Practical Management Tools For Plugins
As well as the methods shown above, you can install other WordPress plugins that help 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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