In a separate blog post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use plugins to add new features or functionality to your blog without touching code.
To read the article, go here:
In this tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping WordPress plugins up-to-date, how to easily upgrade and delete plugins from your site, and useful plugin management tools if you currently run multiple WordPress sites or blogs.
Why Your Plugins Need To Be Regularly Updated
New WordPress versions are constantly being released (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in earlier versions, and to improve existing features.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, there will typically be new new update notifications for WordPress plugins each time a new WordPress version is announced.
The reason for this, is because most plugins for WordPress are created by external developers, so sometimes the code in the new WordPress version conflict with plugins that were developed for a previous version. When this happens, problems can sometimes occur.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are fairly 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 need to do as a WordPress user, is maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is very easy and simple to do.
Keeping your plugins regularly updated and removing old plugins you no longer use is part of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid potential errors or problems.
The WordPress step-by-step tutorial below explains how to upgrade and delete plugins without requiring web coding or programming skills.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins Safely Inside Your WP Admin Dashboard – Tutorial
WordPress employs a few methods of letting you know when your plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can see how many plugins need updating as soon as you log into your Administration area just by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
In the screenshot below, nine WP plugins are out of date and need updating …
You can also see how many plugins need updating from your WP Notification Toolbar (as shown below, several plugins need updating) …
The Plugins page (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also notifies you about plugins that need to be updated …
As well as providing information about plugins that have available updates, the Plugins screen provides links to the plugin developer sites and gives you the option to update your plugin individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by showing you how to update individual plugins.
How To Update Individual Plugins
We strongly recommend making a backup of your site files and database before making any upgrades to your website or blog.
From your admin menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” screen. The screen can be quite long depending on how many plugins you have added to your site …
(Plugins Section)
Useful Info:
If you have too many plugins installed and would like to reduce the number of plugins displaying on the screen, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins page and enter a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show up on the screen by default), then click Apply …
Your Plugins area 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 “Search Plugins” function …
WordPress displays plugin information in different color backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (inactive vs. active and up-to-date vs. out-of-date) …
Plugins that need upgrading have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Insert Plugin Name] available” …
Find the plugin that needs to be updated 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 screen …
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 upgrade all plugins at the same time.
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Now that you know how to upgrade plugins individually, it’s time to learn how to bulk-update plugins.
Bulk-Updating WP Plugins
To bulk-update plugins 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 next to 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 the plugin list, choose Update …
And then click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will begin to update automatically …
After all plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to your Plugins screen, or select another option from the main menu …
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” notices no longer display on your screen, toolbar and menus) …
You have updated all plugins on your site!
(When your plugins are up-to-date, update messages do not display)
Now that you know how to automatically update inside the WP dashboard, let’s take a look at how to safely uninstall plugins from your blog or website.
Deleting WP Plugins
It’s a good idea to delete plugins that you no longer use. This can help to decrease server resources and helps to eliminate causes of some problems.
In this section, you will learn how to deactivate and delete unused plugins from your WordPress site.
We strongly recommend creating 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 delete a plugin, go to your main menu and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins section, find the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is deactivated.
Hint: Inactive plugins have 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 Delete …
If you need to browse all the files that will be deleted before going ahead with the next step, then click on the “Click to view entire list of files which will be deleted” link in the “Delete Plugin” screen …
All files associated with the plugin selected for removalwill display on your screen …
If you are positively certain that you want to proceed and delete the selected plugin files, then click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugins and related files will be deleted …
Deleting Multiple 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) …
Next, choose Deactivate from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click the Apply button …
All 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 on the main menu …
Tick the checkbox in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to remove by checking their individual boxes …
Once you have ticked all the checkboxes next to the plugins that you want to delete, specify Delete from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click Apply …
A list of all selected plugins will be displayed 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 delete all of the plugins listed …
Your plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Management Tools For WP Plugins
In addition to the methods shown above, you can install a number of 3rd-party tools that help 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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