In a previous blog post, we provide a detailed explanation of what WordPress plugins are about and how you can use these to enhance your blog’s capabilities.
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 remove your WordPress plugins, and some tools to help you better manage your plugins.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Your Plugins Need Upgrading
The WordPress software is regularly updated (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in previous releases, and to improve existing features or introduce new ones.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, you can expect to see at least some new updates for plugins each time a new WordPress version is released.
This is because most plugins for WordPress are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes features in the newly-released WordPress version conflict with plugins that were created and tested to work with a previous version. When this happens, problems can sometimes develop.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are fairly proactive when it comes to ensuring that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if updating is required). All you need to do on your end, is just keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is very easy and simple to do.
Keeping your plugins up-to-date and removing old plugins you no longer use is part of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid any potential errors or problems.
The WordPress step-by-step tutorial below explains how to automatically upgrade and delete plugins safely in WordPress without coding skills or knowledge required.
Updating And Deleting Plugins – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress utilizes a number of different methods of letting you know when plugins on your blog need to be updated.
For example, you can instantly see how many plugins need updating inside your Administration site just by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, 9 plugins have older versions that need to be updated …
You can also view how many plugins need to be updated from your WP Notification Toolbar (the screenshot below shows that nine plugins need to be updated) …
The Plugins page (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also provides information about plugins that need to be updated …
As well as providing information about plugins that have available updates, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin download sites and gives you the option to update your plugin individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by learning how to update individual WP plugins.
Updating Plugins Individually
We strongly recommend making a complete backup of your site files and database before updating your blog or website.
From your WP admin menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” area will display in your browser. The list of plugins can flow down your screen for some length, depending on how many plugins you have installed on your blog …
(WordPress Plugins Page)
Additional Information:
If you have too many plugins installed and would like to reduce the number of plugins showing on the screen, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins page and type in a smaller number of items per page (by default, all plugins display on the page), 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 Plugins” field …
WordPress displays plugin information in different backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (inactive vs. active and outdated vs up-to-date) …
Plugins that need upgrading have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Insert Plugin Name] available” …
Select the plugin that needs to be updated and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides fast plugin updating, so that updating your plugins happens with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins area …
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 update all plugins at once.
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Now that you know how to upgrade one WP plugin at a time, the next step is to learn how to bulk-update plugins.
How To Upgrade Multiple Plugins Simultaneously
To upgrade multiple plugins in a single operation 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 …
Click on the checkbox in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to update by checking their individual boxes …
In the Bulk Actions drop-down menu at the top of the page, choose Update …
And then click Apply …
Your selected plugins will all be updated at once …
Once all plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to the Plugins screen, or visit another section of your dashboard …
Once all plugins are up-to-date, the plugin notifications 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) …
All plugins are now up-to-date!
(When your plugins are all up-to-date, the notification icons disappear)
Now that you know how to automatically upgrade your in the dashboard, let’s take a look at how to safely uninstall plugins from your WordPress site or blog.
How To Safely Remove Plugins
As part of good blog management, it’s a good idea to remove plugins that you no longer require. This helps to conserve resources on your server and help to eliminate problems.
In this section, you will learn how to safely delete unused plugins from your WordPress blog or site.
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 delete a plugin, go to your admin menu and select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins area, locate the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is deactivated.
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 proceeding with your plugin deletion …
Once you have deactivated the plugin, click 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” section …
A complete list of files associated with the plugin that you are about to remove will display on your screen …
If you are sure that you would like to go ahead and delete the plugin, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugins and related files will be deleted …
How To Safely Delete Multiple Plugins In Bulk
You can delete all inactive plugins at once, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be deleted.
Note: To delete any plugins that are presently 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 check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …
Next, select Deactivate from the Bulk Actions pull-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” page and click on the Inactive link on the main 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 their individual boxes …
Once you have selected all the plugins that you want to delete, choose Delete from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click Apply …
A list of all selected plugins will be displayed 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 sure that you would like to go ahead and delete all of the plugins listed …
All plugins will be deleted …
Managing WordPress Plugins – Tools
In addition to the methods shown above, you can install 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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