In a previous post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use plugins to easily add new features and functionality to your site with no coding knowledge required.
To view this article, go here:
In this tutorial you will learn why WordPress plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to automatically upgrade and delete plugins, and discover useful tips to help you better manage your plugins.
Why Your WordPress Plugins Need Updating
New versions of WordPress are regularly released (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in previous 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 updates for plugins each time a new WordPress version is made available.
This is because most plugins for WordPress are created by external developers, so sometimes features 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 this is needed). All you need to do on your end, is just keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is very simple, quick and easy to do.
Keeping your plugins up-to-date and deleting old plugins you no longer need is an essential aspect of good WordPress management and helps to avoid problems or errors.
The WordPress step-by-step tutorial below explains how to upgrade and delete plugins in the WordPress admin dashboard with no web programming skills or knowledge necessary.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins Safely From The Dashboard – Tutorial
WordPress employs a few ways to alert users when plugins need updating.
For example, you can see how many plugins are out-of-date as soon as you log into your Administration area simply by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
In the example below, nine plugins have older versions that need updating …
You can also see how many plugins need updating from your WordPress Admin Toolbar (in the screenshot below, you can again see that nine plugins should be brought up to date) …
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 updates available, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin developer sites and gives you the option to update the plugin with one-click …
Let’s start by showing you how to update individual WP plugins.
Update Plugins Individually
We strongly recommend making a complete backup of your website before making any changes to your website or blog.
In your dashboard menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” section will display in your browser. The table of plugins can flow down your page for a while, depending on how many plugins you have added to your blog …
(Plugins Section)
Useful 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 area and enter a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show on the screen by default, i.e. “999”), 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” feature …
WordPress displays information about plugins in different backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (active vs. inactive and out-of-date vs up-to-date) …
Plugins in need of upgrading display the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin Name] available” …
Locate the plugin that needs to be updated and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides smooth and fast plugin updates, 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 see the section below if you have many plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update all plugins at once.
***
Now that you know how to upgrade one plugin at a time, the next step is to learn how to update many WP plugins simultaneously.
Bulk-Updating Plugins
To update multiple WP plugins simultaneously from your admin area, go to the “Plugins” section and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Tick the check box 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 pull-down menu above your plugin table, select Update …
And then click Apply …
Your selected plugins will automatically begin to update …
Once all updates are finished, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to the Plugins section, or choose another option from the WP dashboard menu …
Once your plugins are all up-to-date, any plugin alerts 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 site or blog uses the latest version of all plugins, update icons no longer display)
Now that you know how to automatically upgrade your in the admin dashboard, let’s take a look at how to safely delete plugins safely from your WordPress site.
How To Delete Plugins
At times, you may want to remove plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This can help to decrease resource usage and also help you avoid causes of some problems.
In this section, you will learn how to remove unused plugins from your WordPress site or blog.
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 delete a plugin, go to your main menu and select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins screen, locate the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is deactivated.
Hint: Inactive plugins have a different background color than active plugins and show an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, then click on Deactivate before proceeding with your plugin deletion …
Once you have deactivated the plugin, click Delete …
If you need to review a list of 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” section …
All files associated with the plugin selected for deletionwill display on your screen …
If you are sure that you would like to go ahead and delete these plugin, just click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugins and related files will be removed from your server …
How To Bulk-Delete Plugins
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be uninstalled.
Note: To delete any plugins that are presently 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 checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …
Next, specify Deactivate from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click the Apply button …
All selected plugins will be deactivated …
Once you have deactivated your plugins, click on the Inactive link on the menu at the top of the page …
Select all of the plugins you want to delete by either placing a tick next to their checkbox, 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 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 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 want to go ahead and delete all of the plugins listed …
The selected plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Useful Management Tools For Plugins
As well as the methods shown above, you can use Free and Premium WordPress plugins to 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.
***
"I am beyond impressed with what you have put together. I can tell that you put a ton of hard work into building what you have. You have the absolute best content on WordPress I have ever seen!" - Robert T. Jillie