In a separate post, we provide a detailed explanation of what WordPress plugins are about and how you can use these to easily add new features or functionality to your website or blog without touching code.
To read this article, go here:
In this tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping your plugins up-to-date, how to easily upgrade and remove plugins from your site, and useful tools to help you better manage your plugins.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Many Of Your Plugins Need To Be Frequently Updated
New WordPress versions are regularly released (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in earlier software 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 every.
The reason for this, is because most plugins for WordPress are created by external developers, so sometimes code in the newly-released WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were created and tested to work with a previous version. Whenever this happens, there is a potential for problems to sometimes occur.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are very 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 as a website owner, is just keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is very easy and simple to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins regularly updated and deleting old plugins you no longer use is part of good WordPress management and helps to avoid any errors or conflicts.
The tutorial below explains how to automatically update and delete plugins without requiring web coding or programming skills.
How To Update And Delete Plugins In The WP Dashboard – Tutorial
WordPress utilizes several methods to alert users when plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can instantly see how many plugins need to be updated from your Admin area simply by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, 9 WP plugins need to be updated …
You can also check how many plugins need to be updated from your WP Admin Toolbar (as shown below, a number of plugins need updating) …
The Plugins page (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you 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 pages and gives you the option to update your plugins individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by learning how to upgrade individual WordPress plugins.
Upgrade Individual WordPress Plugins
We recommend making a backup of your site files and database before upgrading your website or blog.
From your main menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” screen will display in your browser. This table of plugins can be quite lengthy depending on how many plugins you have added to your site …
(The WordPress Plugins Screen)
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 area and enter a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show on the page by default), then click Apply …
Your Plugins page 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” box …
WordPress displays information about plugins in different backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (active vs. inactive and up-to-date vs. outdated) …
Plugins that need upgrading have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin Name] available” …
Locate the plugin that needs updating and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides smooth & fast plugin updates, so that the process of updating your plugins takes place with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat this process for any other plugins on your site that need to be updated, or see the section below if you have a number of plugins that are out-of-date and would like to upgrade them all in bulk.
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Now that you know how to upgrade individual plugins, let’s show you how to bulk-update plugins.
How To Update Multiple Plugins Simultaneously
To update multiple WordPress plugins in a single operation directly inside your dashboard, go to the “Plugins” page and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Tick the checkbox in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to update by checking their individual boxes …
In the Bulk Actions dropdown menu above the list of plugins, choose Update …
And then click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will begin to update automatically …
Once all updates have completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to your Plugins screen, or go to a different section of your dashboard …
Once all plugins are 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 plugins on your site are up-to-date, update alerts no longer display)
Now that you know how to automatically upgrade inside the dashboard, let’s take a look at how to remove plugins from your WordPress site or blog.
Deleting WordPress Plugins
It’s a good idea to remove inactive plugins. This conserves server resources and also help to minimize problems.
In this section, you will learn how to safely uninstall unused plugins from your WordPress blog or site.
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 remove a plugin, go to your dashboard menu and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins screen, locate the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is inactive.
Hint: Inactive plugins are listed 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 …
Click on Delete …
If you would like to have a look at 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” screen …
A complete 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 proceed and delete these plugin files, just click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugin(s) will be deleted …
How To Safely Delete Multiple WP Plugins Simultaneously
You can delete all inactive plugins at once, 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 checkbox, 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, 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, go to the “Plugins” page and click on the Inactive link in the Plugins menu …
Select all of the plugins you want to delete by either placing a tick next to their checkbox, or click on the checkbox 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, choose Delete from the Bulk Actions dropdown 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 want to proceed to the next step and delete all of the selected plugins …
The plugins will be deleted …
Management Tools For WordPress Plugins
As well as the methods shown above, you can install a range of 3rd-party tools 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.
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