In a previous blog post, we provide an overview of what WP plugins are all about and how you can use these to add new features to your website with no software programming knowledge required.
To read the article, go here:
In this tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date, how to automatically update and remove your WordPress plugins, and discover some great tools to help you better manage your plugins if you run or manage multiple WordPress sites or blogs.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Some WordPress Plugins Need To Be Regularly Updated
The WordPress software is regularly updated (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in earlier versions, and to improve existing features or introduce new ones.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, there will typically be new new update notifications for plugins each time a new version of WordPress is released.
The reason for this, is because most plugins for WordPress are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes code or features in the newly-released WordPress version conflict with plugins that were created and tested to work with a previous version. Whenever this happens, there is a potential for conflicts to 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 needed). All you have to do on your end, is keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is very simple and easy to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins regularly updated and deleting old plugins you no longer use is an essential aspect of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid potential conflicts and errors.
The tutorial below explains how to upgrade and delete plugins safely inside your dashboard without touching web code.
Updating And Deleting WordPress Plugins In Your WP Dashboard – Tutorial
WordPress utilizes several ways to inform you when plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can tell immediately how many plugins need updating inside your Site’s Dashboard by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
In the screenshot below, nine plugins are out of date and need to be updated …
You can also tell how many plugins need to be updated from your WP Toolbar (in the example below, you can again see that nine plugins should be updated) …
The Plugins screen (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you which plugins need updating …
In addition to providing information about plugins that have updates available, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin download sites and gives you the option to update the plugins with one-click …
Let’s start by showing you how to upgrade plugins individually.
Upgrading Plugins Individually
Always make a complete backup of your website before making any updates to your blog or website.
In your admin menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” screen. The table of plugins can go down your page for a while, depending on the number of plugins you have added to your blog …
(The WordPress Plugins Section)
Notes:
If you have too many plugins installed and would like to make this section more manageable, 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 on the screen by default), then click Apply …
Your Plugins section 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 “Plugin Search” field …
WordPress displays plugin information in different backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (active vs. inactive and up-to-date vs. out-of-date) …
Plugins in need of upgrading show the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin] 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 happens “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat this process for all plugins on your site that need to be updated, or refer to the section below if you have many plugins that are out-of-date and would like to upgrade all plugins in one simple operation.
***
Now that you know how to upgrade one plugin at a time, let’s show you how to bulk-update plugins.
Bulk-Upgrading Plugins
To bulk-update WordPress plugins simultaneously using the automatic upgrading feature, 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 next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to upgrade by checking their individual boxes …
In the Bulk Actions dropdown menu at the top of the page, select Update …
Click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will begin the update process …
After the update process has been completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to your Plugins section, or go to 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” messages no longer display on your screen, toolbar and menus) …
You have updated all plugins on your site to their latest version!
(When plugins on your site are up-to-date, notification icons no longer appear)
Now that you know how to automatically upgrade your in your admin dashboard, it’s time to learn how to delete plugins from your WordPress site.
Deleting Plugins
Occasionally, you may want to remove plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This helps to decrease resource usage and help to reduce 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 reinstall your site.
To remove a plugin, go to your admin menu and select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins area, find 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 show an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, click on Deactivate before going any further …
Once you have deactivated the plugin, click Delete …
If you would like 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” section …
A complete list of files associated with the plugin that you are about to remove will be listed on your screen …
If you are certain that you want to go ahead and delete these plugin, then click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugin(s) will be deleted …
How To Bulk-Delete WordPress Plugins
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 checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …
Next, choose 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 …
Click on the check box in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to delete by checking its box …
Once you have ticked all the checkboxes next to the plugins that you want to delete, select Delete from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click Apply …
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 absolutely sure that you want to proceed to the next step and delete all of the plugins listed …
The plugins will be deleted …
WordPress Tools For Managing Plugins
In addition to the methods shown above, you can use other 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.
***
"I have used the tutorials to teach all of my clients and it has probably never been so easy for everyone to learn WordPress ... Now I don't need to buy all these very expensive video courses that often don't deliver what they promise." - Stefan Wendt, Internet Marketing Success Group