In a separate article, we explain what plugins are and how you can use these to easily 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 why WordPress plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to safely upgrade and uninstall plugins, and useful tools to help you better manage your plugins.
Why Many Of Your Plugins Need Regular Upgrading
New WordPress versions are constantly being released (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in older software versions, and 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 notices for WordPress plugins every.
This is because most WordPress plugins are created by external developers, so sometimes features in the newly-released WordPress version conflict with plugins that were built for a previous version. When this happens, there is a potential for issues to sometimes develop.
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 this is needed). All you have to do on your end, is keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is really quick, simple and easy to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date and deleting old plugins you no longer use is an essential aspect of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid potential errors and problems.
The tutorial below explains how to automatically update and delete plugins in WordPress without editing web code.
Upgrading And Deleting Plugins – Tutorial
WordPress provides several ways to notify you when plugins need updating.
For example, you can instantly see how many plugins need to be updated inside your WordPress Dashboard simply by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, you can see that 9 plugins are out of date and need to be updated …
You can also tell how many plugins need to be updated from your WordPress Toolbar (as shown below, nine plugins should be brought up to date) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also provides information about plugins that need to be updated …
In addition to 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 individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by showing you how to upgrade individual WP plugins.
How To Upgrade Individual WordPress Plugins
Always make a backup of your website before updating your blog or website.
In your dashboard menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” area will display in your browser. The screen can be quite long depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site …
(Plugins Page)
Additional Info:
If you have too many plugins and would like to make this section more manageable, 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 screen), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
Your Plugins section 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 “Search Installed Plugins” field …
WordPress displays information about plugins in different backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (inactive vs. active and out-of-date vs up-to-date) …
Plugins that need upgrading display the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin] available” …
Locate 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 plugin update process, so that updating your plugins happens “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat this process for any other plugins on your site that need updating, or refer to the section below if you have a number of plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update them all at the same time.
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Now that you know how to upgrade one plugin at a time, the next step is to learn how to update several WP plugins simultaneously.
How To Upgrade Several WP Plugins Simultaneously
To bulk-upgrade WordPress plugins simultaneously directly inside your dashboard, go to the “Plugins” screen 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 its box …
In the Bulk Actions drop-down menu above your plugin list, select Update …
And then click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will automatically begin updating …
Once your plugins have all been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to your Plugins area, or go to 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) …
You have updated all plugins on your site!
(When plugins on your site are all up-to-date, update alerts no longer appear)
Now that you know how to automatically upgrade your plugins, let’s take a look at how to uninstall plugins safely from your site or blog.
How To Safely Delete Plugins
At times, you may choose to delete plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This can decrease resources on your server and also eliminate potential problems.
In this section, you will learn how to safely uninstall 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 restore your site.
To remove a plugin, go to your dashboard menu and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins area, find 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, 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 proceeding, then click on the “Click to view entire list of files which will be deleted” link in the “Delete Plugin” screen …
All files belonging to the plugin that you are about to delete will be listed on your screen …
If you are absolutely sure about going ahead and deleting the plugin, just click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugins and related files will be removed from your server …
How To Safely Bulk-Delete Plugins
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins on your site, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be uninstalled.
Note: To delete any plugins that are currently active, you first need to 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 checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …
Next, specify Deactivate from the Bulk Actions drop-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” screen and click on the Inactive link on the main 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, 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 sure that you would like to proceed to the next step and remove all of the plugins listed …
All plugins will be deleted …
Management Tools For Plugins
As well as the methods shown above, you can install Free and Premium WordPress plugins that let 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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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)