In a separate blog post, we provide a detailed explanation of what plugins are about and how you can use plugins to easily add new features or functionality to your website or blog with no software programming skills required.
To view this article, go here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date, how to easily update and uninstall your WordPress plugins, and discover practical tips to help you better manage your plugins if you currently run or manage multiple WordPress sites or blogs.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Your Plugins Need To Be Upgraded
New versions of WordPress are regularly released (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in older software versions, as well as to improve existing features or introduce new functionality to users.
Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, there will typically be new new update notifications for WordPress plugins every.
This is because most WordPress plugins are created by third-party developers, so sometimes code in the newly-released WordPress version conflict with plugins that were built for a previous version. When this happens, there is a potential for issues to sometimes develop.
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 required). All you need to do on your end, is simply keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is really quick, simple and easy to do.
Keeping your plugins up-to-date and deleting old plugins you no longer use is an essential aspect of good WordPress management and helps to avoid errors or problems.
The WordPress tutorial below explains how to update and delete plugins safely from your WordPress admin dashboard without editing web code.
Upgrading And Deleting Plugins – Tutorial
WordPress employs several methods to let you know when plugins on your site need updating.
For example, you can see ‘at a glance’ how many plugins are out-of-date inside your Administration site by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
In the screenshot below, 9 WP plugins need to be updated …
You can also check how many plugins need updating from your WP Admin Toolbar (as shown below, nine plugins need updating) …
The Plugins page (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also lets you know which plugins need updating …
In addition to providing information about plugins that have updates available, the Plugins screen provides links to the plugin developer sites and gives you the option to update the plugins with one-click …
Let’s start by showing you how to upgrade WordPress plugins individually.
Upgrade WordPress Plugins One At A Time
Always make a full backup of your data and files before updating your website.
In your dashboard menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” screen will display in your browser. The list of plugins can run down your screen for a while, depending on how many plugins you have added to your blog …
(Plugins Screen)
Useful Information:
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 up on the page by default, i.e. “999”), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
Your Plugins area 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 “Plugin Search” function …
WordPress displays information about plugins in different backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (active vs. inactive and up-to-date vs. outdated) …
Plugins that require upgrading have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin] available” …
Select 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 plugin updating process, so that the process of updating your plugins happens with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat the above process for any other plugins on your site that need updating, or see the section below if you have a number of 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 update plugins individually, it’s time to learn how to upgrade many plugins simultaneously.
Bulk-Upgrading Plugins
To bulk-update WordPress plugins simultaneously from your admin area, 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 update by checking its box …
In the Bulk Actions pull-down menu above the table of plugins, select Update …
And then click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will begin to update automatically …
Once all upgrades are done, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to the Plugins screen, or select 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” notices no longer display) …
You have updated all plugins on your site!
(When plugins on your site are all up-to-date, notification icons do not display)
Now that you know how to upgrade WordPress in your dashboard, let’s take a look at how to uninstall plugins safely from your WordPress site.
Deleting WordPress Plugins
As part of good WordPress management, it’s a good idea to uninstall plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This can help to reduce resource usage and also eliminates problems.
In this section, you will learn how to 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 reinstall your site.
To remove a plugin, go to your main menu and select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins page, find 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 show an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, click on Deactivate before proceeding …
Click Delete …
If you want 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” page …
The entire list of files belonging to the plugin that you are about to remove will be listed on your screen …
If you are positively certain about going ahead and deleting these plugin files, then click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugin(s) will be deleted …
Bulk-Deleting Plugins
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins on your site, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be uninstalled.
Note: To delete any plugins that are currently 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 checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …
Next, select Deactivate from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click Apply …
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 check boxes next to the plugins that you want deleted, specify Delete from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click the Apply button …
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 plugins listed …
Your plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Management Tools For Plugins
In addition to the methods shown above, you can install WordPress plugins to manage your WordPress plugins.
PLUGIN CENTRAL
Plugin Central improves the management of your plugins by allowing you to install plugins directly, displays the status of plugins in need of update in the Dashboard and lets you update multiple plugins with a single mouse-click …
For more details about this plugin, go here:
Managing WordPress Plugins On Multiple Sites
When plugin developers release a new plugin update, the best practice is to upgrde the plugin as soon as possible.
What if you run multiple WordPress sites using the same plugin? One option, is to login to every site and then go through the plugin update process from that site’s admin dashboard. If you plan to run multiple sites, updating the same plugin(s) can take quite a while!
WordPress Power User Tip: If you own or manage a number of WordPress sites or blogs, you can install, upgrade or remove plugins on all of your sites automatically and simultaneously using a number of WordPress management tools.
Here are just some WordPress management tools that are worth knowing about:
Jetpack Manage
Jetpack is a multifunctional plugin for WordPress that offers users a powerful range of added functionality, allowing self-hosted WordPress site users to benefit from WordPress.com’s infrastructure and take advantage of things like stats reporting, automated social sharing, and a whole lot more.
(Jetpack gives you access to range of powerful WordPress features)
One of these features is “Manage”.
Jetpack Manage lets you manage your self-hosted WordPress sites and WordPress.com sites from a central dashboard on WordPress.com.
With Manage, you can upgrade plugins, set plugins to update automatically, and activate or deactivate plugins on a site-by-site basis or in bulk, whether you’re on your laptop, tablet, or smart device.
To download the plugin, visit this site:
ManageWP.com – Manage All Your Plugins From One Dashboard
(ManageWP is a very popular management tool for multiple WordPress sites)
ManageWP lets you easily manage all your sites from one place, including updates, backups, security and more. This application features easy one-click management and instant login access to all of your WordPress sites.
Visit this site to download and use the plugin:
WP Pipeline.com
(With WP Pipeline, you can update all of your WordPress sites, plugins and themes from a single WP installation)
WP Pipeline is very similar to ManageWP, but you only have to pay once to access the software. It lets you control and organize your entire portfolio of WordPress sites and perform multiple upgrades from a single WordPress installation.
Go here to download the plugin:
Congratulations! Now you know how to upgrade and safely remove your plugins using your WP admin dashboard.
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"This is AMAZING! I had learnt about how to use WordPress previously, but this covers absolutely everything and more!! Incredible value! Thank you!" - Monique, Warrior Forum