In another article, we explain what plugins are and how you can use these to easily enhance your web site’s capabilities.
To read the article, go here:
In this tutorial you will learn why plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to easily upgrade and remove plugins from your site, and some great tips to help you better manage your plugins if you plan to run multiple WordPress sites or blogs.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Many Plugins Need Frequent Upgrading
The WordPress software is regularly updated (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in older releases, as well as to improve existing features.
Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, there will typically be new new update notifications for WordPress plugins each time a new WordPress version is released.
The reason for this, is because most WordPress plugins are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes the code in the new WordPress version conflicts 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 fairly proactive when it comes to making sure that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if updating is required). All you need to do as a website owner, is just keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is very simple, quick and easy to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins regularly updated and removing old plugins you no longer use is part of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid errors and conflicts.
The step-by-step tutorial below explains how to update and delete plugins in WordPress without requiring coding skills.
Upgrading And Deleting Plugins Safely – Tutorial
WordPress provides a few ways to let users know when plugins on their site need updating.
For example, you can see how many plugins are out-of-date from your Admin area just by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, you can see that nine WordPress plugins are out of date and need to be updated …
You can also check how many plugins need updating from your WordPress Admin Toolbar (in the screenshot below, you can again see that nine plugins should be updated) …
The Plugins screen (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you how many 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 individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by showing you how to upgrade one plugin at a time.
Upgrading Plugins One At A Time
Always make a full backup of your website before making any upgrades to your website.
From your WP admin menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” page. The table of plugins can be quite long depending on the number of plugins you have installed on your blog …
(Plugins Page)
Useful Tips:
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 screen and type in a smaller number of items per page (by default, all plugins display on the screen), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
Your Plugins page will now be reduced in size with a pagination feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Search” feature …
You will see information about plugins in different color backgrounds depending on the status of the 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 Name] available” …
Locate the plugin that needs to be updated and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides streamlined plugin updates, so that the process of updating your plugins happens “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat the above process for all plugins on your site that need updating, or refer to the section below if you have a number of plugins that are out-of-date and would like to upgrade all plugins in bulk.
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Now that you know how to upgrade plugins one at a time, the next step is to learn how to upgrade a bunch of plugins simultaneously.
How To Bulk-Update WP Plugins
To bulk-update WP plugins simultaneously using the automatic upgrading feature, go to the “Plugins” page 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 only the plugins you want to upgrade by checking its box …
In the Bulk Actions pull-down menu above your plugin table, select Update …
And then click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will automatically begin to update …
After all plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to your Plugins section, or choose another option from the WordPress admin menu …
Once all plugins are up-to-date, the update reminders disappear (i.e. the “at-a-glance” indicators and “There is a new version of XYZ plugin available” notices no longer display) …
All plugins are now up-to-date!
(When your plugins are up-to-date, the notification icons no longer show)
Now that you know how to automatically update in your WP dashboard, let’s take a look at how to safely uninstall plugins from your site or blog.
Deleting WordPress Plugins
Occasionally, you may choose to remove plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This helps to reduce resource usage and also helps to eliminate potential problems.
In this section, you will learn how to safely deactivate and delete 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 reinstall your site.
To delete a plugin, go to your dashboard menu and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins page, locate the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is deactivated.
Hint: Inactive plugins appear in a different colored background than active plugins and display an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, click on Deactivate before proceeding …
Next, click on Delete …
If you want to have a look at all the files that will be deleted before going ahead, then click on the “Click to view entire list of files which will be deleted” link in the “Delete Plugin” screen …
The entire list of files associated with the plugin selected for removalwill be listed on your screen …
If you are positively sure that you would like to go ahead and delete the selected plugin files, just click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugin(s) will be deleted …
Bulk-Deleting WP 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 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, 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 on your site, go to the “Plugins” page and click on the Inactive link in the Plugins menu …
Click on the check box 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 check boxes next to the plugins that you want deleted, specify Delete from the Bulk Actions drop 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 sure that you want to go ahead and remove all of the selected plugins …
All plugins will be deleted …
Managing WP Plugins
In addition to the methods shown above, you can use WordPress plugins that let you 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.
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