In another article, we explain what plugins are and how you can use plugins to expand your site’s capabilities.
You can read the article here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date, how to safely update and delete plugins from your site, and discover some plugin management tools if you currently run multiple WordPress sites or blogs.
Why Your WordPress Plugins Need To Be Frequently Upgraded
The WordPress software is constantly updated (about every 3-4 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 have installed on your site, you can expect to see at least some new new update notices for plugins each time a new WordPress version is announced.
This is because most WordPress plugins are created by external developers, so sometimes the code in the newly-released WordPress version conflict with plugins that were developed and tested with a previous version. Whenever this happens, conflicts can sometimes develop.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are quite proactive when it comes to making sure that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if updating 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 easy 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 errors or problems.
The tutorial below explains how to automatically upgrade and delete plugins safely in the dashboard without requiring coding knowledge.
How To Update And Delete Plugins Safely – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress has a number of different methods to let you know when your plugins need updating.
For example, you can instantly see how many plugins need to be updated inside your Site’s Dashboard by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, nine WordPress plugins need updating …
You can also tell how many plugins need to be updated from your WP Toolbar (the screenshot below shows that several plugins should be updated) …
The Plugins page (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also lets you know which plugins need to be updated …
In addition to providing information about which plugins have available updates, the Plugins page provides links to the plugin download pages and gives you the option to update the plugin with one-click …
Let’s start by learning how to upgrade individual plugins.
How To Update Plugins One At A Time
We strongly recommend making a complete backup of your site files and database before upgrading your website.
In your main menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” area will display in your browser. The table of plugins can go down your screen for some length, depending on the number of plugins you have installed on your blog …
(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 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 page scrolling feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Search Installed Plugins” feature …
You will see plugin information in different backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (active vs. inactive and up-to-date vs. out-of-date) …
Plugins that require upgrading display the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin Name] available” …
Select the plugin that needs updating and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides streamlined plugin updates, so that the process of updating your plugins takes place “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat this process for all plugins on your site that need to be updated, or refer to the section below if you have several plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update them all in bulk.
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Now that you know how to update individual plugins, the next step is to learn how to update multiple WordPress plugins simultaneously.
Bulk-Upgrading Plugins
To update multiple plugins at the same time 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 the check box 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 …
And then click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will begin updating …
Once all plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back 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” 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, the notification icons disappear)
Now that you know how to upgrade WP in your dashboard, it’s time to learn how to safely delete plugins safely from your blog or website.
How To Remove Plugins
As part of smart site management, it’s a good idea to delete plugins that you no longer need. This conserves resource usage and also will help you avoid causes of problems.
In this section, we show you how to deactivate and delete unused plugins from your blog or site.
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 choose Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins screen, locate the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is deactivated.
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, then click on Deactivate before proceeding with your plugin deletion …
Click on Delete …
If you want to browse 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 …
The entire list of files associated with the plugin that you are about to remove will display on your screen …
If you are positively sure about going ahead and deleting these plugin, just click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugin(s) will be deleted …
Deleting Several WordPress Plugins In Bulk
You can delete all inactive plugins at once, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be removed.
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 check box, or selecting the check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …
Once you have done this, specify Deactivate from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click the Apply button …
The selected plugins will be deactivated …
To delete all or some of the inactive plugins, go to the “Plugins” page and click on the Inactive link in the Plugins menu …
Tick the check box in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to delete by checking its box …
Once you have selected all the plugins that you want to delete, specify Delete from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click the Apply button …
A list of all selected plugins will display 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 go ahead and delete all of the selected plugins …
Your plugins will be deleted …
WordPress Management Tools For Plugins
As well as the methods shown above, you can use 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.
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