In a previous blog post, we provide a detailed explanation of what plugins are all about and how you can use these to expand your website’s capabilities.
To read this article, go here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping your plugins up-to-date, how to automatically upgrade and remove plugins from your site, and some tools to help you better manage your plugins if you currently run or manage multiple WordPress sites or blogs.
Why Many Of Your WordPress Plugins Need To Be Updated
The WordPress software is constantly updated (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in older versions, and to improve existing features or introduce new functionality to WordPress users.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, you can expect to see at least some new new update notices for plugins every.
The reason for this, is because most WordPress plugins are created by third-party developers, so sometimes the code in the new WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were built for a previous version. Whenever this happens, conflicts can 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 this is required). All you need to do on your end, is keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is really easy to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date and deleting old plugins you no longer need is part of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid potential conflicts and errors.
The WordPress tutorial below explains how to automatically update and delete plugins safely without touching web code.
How To Upgrade And Delete Plugins Safely In WordPress – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress utilizes a number of different methods to let you know when your plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can instantly see how many plugins are out-of-date as soon as you log into your Admin area just by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
In the example below, you can see that 9 plugins have older versions that need updating …
You can also check how many plugins need to be updated from your WP Toolbar (as shown below, nine 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 which plugins have available updates, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin download pages and gives you the option to update your plugin instantly …
Let’s start by learning how to upgrade plugins individually.
How To Upgrade Individual WordPress Plugins
Always make a backup of your site files and database before making any updates to your blog or website.
In your dashboard menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” screen. This table of plugins can be quite lengthy depending on the number of plugins you have installed in your blog …
(The WordPress Plugins Section)
Useful Tips:
If you have too many plugins installed and would like to reduce the number of plugins displaying on your screen, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins page and type in a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show up 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 Installed Plugins” box …
WordPress displays information about plugins in different color backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (active vs. inactive and up-to-date vs. outdated) …
Plugins that require upgrading have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin] available” …
Find the plugin that needs updating and click on the update now link …
WordPress has done away with the loading screen when updating plugins and streamlined the process, so that updating your plugins takes place “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat this process for any other plugins on your site that need updating, or refer to the section below if you have several plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update them all at once.
***
Now that you know how to upgrade plugins individually, the next step is to learn how to bulk-upgrade plugins.
How To Bulk-Upgrade WP Plugins
To bulk-upgrade plugins simultaneously from your admin area, go to the “Plugins” area and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Click on 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 pull-down menu above your plugin table, choose Update …
And then click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will automatically begin to update …
Once your plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to the Plugins area, or visit another section of your dashboard …
Once your plugins are all up-to-date, the plugin notifications 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 site or blog uses the latest version of all plugins, notification icons no longer appear)
Now that you know how to automatically upgrade WordPress inside your dashboard, it’s time to learn how to uninstall plugins from your WordPress site or blog.
Deleting WP Plugins
Occasionally, you may decide to remove plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This decreases resource usage and helps to eliminate potential problems.
In this section, we show you how to delete unused plugins from your WordPress blog or site.
We strongly recommend creating 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 WP admin menu and select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins section, locate the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is deactivated.
Hint: Inactive plugins use 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 …
Click on Delete …
If you would like to have a look at 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” screen …
A complete list of files associated with the plugin selected for removalwill be listed on your screen …
If you are absolutely certain about going ahead and deleting the selected plugin files, just click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected 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 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, specify Deactivate from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click the Apply button …
Your selected plugins will be deactivated …
To delete all or some of the inactive plugins on your site, go to the “Plugins” area and click on the Inactive link in the Plugins menu …
Select all of the plugins you want to delete by either placing a tick next to their check box, 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 to delete, choose Delete from the Bulk Actions drop-down menu …
Click the Apply button …
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 would like to proceed to the next step and remove all of the selected plugins …
The plugins will be deleted …
WordPress Tools For Managing WordPress Plugins
In addition to the methods shown above, you can install a range of 3rd-party tools 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.
***
"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)