In another blog post, we provide a detailed explanation of what WordPress plugins are about and how you can use plugins to add new features to your web site with no software programming knowledge required.
You can read the article here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date, how to automatically upgrade and remove plugins from your site, and discover some great tips to help you better manage your plugins if you need to run multiple WordPress sites or blogs.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Some Plugins Need Upgrading
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 releases, and to improve existing features or introduce new ones.
Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, you can expect to see at least some new new update notices for WordPress plugins each time a new WordPress version is made available.
The reason for 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 developed for a previous version. When this happens, there is a potential for issues 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 have to do as a website owner, is simply maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is really easy to do.
Keeping your plugins regularly updated and removing old plugins you no longer use is part of good WordPress management and helps to avoid potential errors and problems.
The WordPress step-by-step tutorial below explains how to automatically update and delete plugins safely inside your dashboard without requiring web programming knowledge.
How To Automatically Update And Delete Plugins – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress provides a few ways to let you know when plugins on your site need to be updated.
For example, you can see how many plugins are out-of-date inside your Administration site just by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, you can see that 9 plugins have older versions that need updating …
You can also view how many plugins need updating from your WordPress Toolbar (in the example below, you can again see that nine plugins should be brought up to date) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also provides information about plugins that need updating …
In addition to providing information about which plugins have updates available, the Plugins page provides links to the plugin download pages and gives you the option to update the plugins individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by showing you how to update individual plugins.
Upgrade Individual Plugins
We strongly recommend performing a backup of your website before making any updates to your website.
From your main menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” area. The table of plugins can run down your page for a while, depending on the number of plugins you have added to your site …
(The WordPress Plugins Screen)
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 area and enter 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 “Plugin Search” feature …
You will see information about plugins in different backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (inactive vs. active and outdated vs up-to-date) …
Plugins in need of updating show the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Insert Plugin Name] available” …
Select the plugin that needs updating and click on the update now link …
WordPress has done away with the loading screen when updating plugins and streamlined the process, so that the process of updating your plugins happens “behind the scenes” 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 several plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update all plugins at the same time.
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Now that you know how to upgrade plugins individually, the next step is to learn how to bulk-upgrade plugins.
How To Upgrade Multiple Plugins
To update multiple WP plugins in one go using the automatic upgrade 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 next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to update by checking its box …
In the Bulk Actions pull-down menu above the plugin list, choose Update …
And then click Apply …
Your selected plugins will all be updated at once …
Once the update process has completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to your Plugins area, or go to a different section of your dashboard …
Once your plugins are all up-to-date, the update reminders will 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 site uses the latest version of all plugins, the notification icons no longer show)
Now that you know how to automatically upgrade plugins, it’s time to learn how to uninstall plugins from your WordPress blog or website.
Deleting WordPress Plugins
It’s a good idea to remove plugins that you no longer plan to use. This conserves resource usage and also will help you avoid problems.
In this section, we show you how to safely deactivate and delete unused plugins from your WordPress 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 delete a plugin, go to your main menu and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins page, find the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is inactive.
Hint: Inactive plugins are listed in a different colored background than active plugins and display an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, then click on Deactivate before proceeding with your plugin deletion …
Next, click on Delete …
If you need to have a look at all the files that will be deleted before taking the next step, then click on the “Click to view entire list of files which will be deleted” link in the “Delete Plugin” section …
All files belonging to the plugin that you are about to delete will display on your screen …
If you are sure that you would like to go ahead and delete the selected plugin, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugins and related files will be deleted …
How To Delete Several WordPress Plugins In Bulk
You can delete all inactive plugins at once, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be cleared.
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) …
Once you have done this, specify Deactivate from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click Apply …
The selected plugins will be deactivated …
Once you have deactivated these plugins, click on the Inactive 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 delete by checking their individual boxes …
Once you have selected all of the plugins that you want deleted, choose Delete from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click the Apply button …
A list of all selected plugins will be displayed 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 would like to go ahead and remove all of the selected plugins …
Your plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Tools For Managing Plugins
In addition to the methods shown above, you can install a range of third-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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