In a separate blog post, we provide an overview of what WP plugins are all about and how you can use plugins to easily increase your blog’s capabilities.
To view the article, go here:
In this tutorial you will learn why WordPress plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to automatically update and uninstall plugins from your site, and some plugin management tools if you plan to run or manage multiple WordPress sites or blogs.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Your WordPress Plugins Need Upgrading
New WordPress versions are constantly being released (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in earlier software releases, and to improve existing features.
Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, there will typically be new updates for WordPress plugins every.
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 built for a previous version. Whenever this happens, issues 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 have to do on your end, is just maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is very easy to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins regularly updated and deleting old plugins you no longer use is part of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid potential conflicts and errors.
The WordPress step-by-step tutorial below explains how to automatically upgrade and delete plugins safely in WordPress without touching web code.
Upgrading And Deleting Plugins Safely – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress employs a number of different methods of letting users know when plugins on their blog need to be updated.
For example, you can tell immediately how many plugins are out-of-date as soon as you log into your Admin area by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
In the screenshot below, 9 plugins have older versions that need updating …
You can also check how many plugins need updating from your WordPress Notification Toolbar (in the screenshot below, you can again see that 9 plugins should be brought up to date) …
The Plugins page (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also notifies you about plugins that need to be updated …
In addition to providing information about plugins that have available updates, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin download pages and gives you the option to update your plugin with one-click …
Let’s start by learning how to upgrade one plugin at a time.
How To Upgrade Individual Plugins
We recommend performing a backup of your data and files before updating your blog or website.
In your admin menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” section will display in your browser. The list of plugins can be quite lengthy depending on how many plugins you have added to your blog …
(Plugins Page)
Useful Tips:
If you have too many plugins installed 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 section will now be reduced in size with a page scrolling feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Search Installed Plugins” field …
WordPress displays plugin information in different color backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (inactive vs. active and up-to-date vs. out-of-date) …
Plugins that require upgrading have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Insert Plugin Name] available” …
Select the plugin that you want to update and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides streamlined plugin updates, so that updating your plugins happens “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat the above 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 at once.
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Now that you know how to update one WP plugin at a time, it’s time to learn how to upgrade multiple WP plugins simultaneously.
Bulk-Updating Plugins
To bulk-upgrade plugins directly inside your dashboard, go to the “Plugins” section and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Click on the check box in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to upgrade by checking their individual boxes …
In the Bulk Actions dropdown menu at the top of the page, choose Update …
And then click Apply …
Your selected plugins will begin to update automatically …
After all plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to your Plugins area, or select a different section of your dashboard …
Once your plugins are all 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 have now been updated!
(When your site uses the latest version of all plugins, update alerts disappear)
Now that you know how to automatically update inside your WP dashboard, it’s time to learn how to uninstall plugins safely from your WordPress site.
Deleting Plugins
It’s a good idea to delete plugins that you no longer need. This can decrease resources on your server and also will help you avoid causes of problems.
In this section, you will learn how to safely remove unused plugins from your WordPress blog or 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 WP admin menu and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins area, find the plugin you want to remove 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 going any further …
Click on Delete …
If you want to browse all the files that will be deleted before going ahead with the next step, 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 display on your screen …
If you are absolutely sure that you want to proceed and delete the selected plugin, then click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugins and related files will be deleted …
Deleting Multiple Plugins At Once
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 currently 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 check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …
Next, choose Deactivate from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click Apply …
The 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 on the main menu …
Click the check box next to 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 absolutely sure that you want to proceed to the next step and remove all of the selected plugins …
The plugins will be deleted …
Useful Management Tools For WordPress Plugins
In addition to the methods shown above, you can use a number of 3rd-party tools that help 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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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)