In another post, we provide an overview of what plugins are all about and how you can use plugins to add new features to your website or blog with no technical knowledge required.
You can view the article here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping plugins up-to-date, how to automatically upgrade and remove plugins from your site, and practical tips to help you better manage your plugins.
Why Some WordPress Plugins Need Upgrading
New versions of WordPress are frequently being released (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in earlier software versions, as well as to improve existing features.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, there will typically be new new update notifications for plugins every.
This is because most WordPress plugins are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes features in the new WordPress version conflict with plugins that were created and tested to work with a previous version. When this happens, there is a potential for conflicts to sometimes develop.
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 required). All you need to do as a website owner, is keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is very easy and simple to do.
Keeping your plugins regularly updated and removing old plugins you no longer need is part of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid any problems or errors.
The tutorial below explains how to automatically update and delete plugins without editing web code.
How To Upgrade And Delete Plugins Safely – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress provides a few methods to inform you when plugins need updating.
For example, you can instantly see how many plugins are out-of-date as soon as you log into your Site’s Dashboard simply by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, nine plugins are out of date and need to be updated …
You can also check how many plugins need to be updated from your WordPress Admin Toolbar (in the example below, you can see how many plugins should be updated) …
The Plugins page (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also notifies you about plugins that need updating …
As well as providing information about plugins that have available updates, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin download sites and gives you the option to update the plugin instantly …
Let’s start by learning how to upgrade WordPress plugins individually.
How To Upgrade Individual Plugins
We strongly recommend making a backup of your website before updating your blog or website.
From your WP admin menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” page will display in your browser. The screen can be quite lengthy depending on how many plugins you have added to your blog …
(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 screen 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 page scrolling feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Plugin Search” function …
WordPress displays plugin information in different color backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (inactive vs. active and out-of-date vs up-to-date) …
Plugins in need of updating show the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin] available” …
Find the plugin that needs to be updated and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides fast plugin updating, so that the process of updating your plugins takes place “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat this process for all plugins on your site that need to be updated, or refer to the section below if you have several plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update them all in bulk.
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Now that you know how to update individual plugins, it’s time to learn how to upgrade multiple plugins simultaneously.
Bulk-Upgrading Plugins
To upgrade multiple plugins at the same time directly inside your dashboard, go to the “Plugins” area and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Tick the check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to update by checking their individual boxes …
In the Bulk Actions drop down menu above the plugin table, choose Update …
And then click Apply …
Your selected plugins will begin the update process …
After all updates have been completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to your Plugins section, or choose another option from the admin menu …
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” messages no longer display on your screen, toolbar and menus) …
You have updated all plugins on your site!
(When your plugins are up-to-date, the notification icons disappear)
Now that you know how to update plugins, it’s time to learn how to remove plugins safely from your blog or website.
Deleting Plugins
At times, you may want to remove plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This conserves resources on your server and eliminates causes of problems.
In this section, you will learn how to safely remove unused plugins from your WordPress site.
Always create 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 remove a plugin, go to your dashboard menu and select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins screen, find the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is deactivated.
Hint: Inactive plugins have a different background color than active plugins and display an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, click on Deactivate before proceeding with your plugin deletion …
Once you have deactivated the plugin, click Delete …
If you would like to browse 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” page …
All files belonging to the plugin that you are about to delete will be listed on your screen …
If you are certain that you want to go ahead and delete the plugin, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugins and related files will be deleted …
Deleting Multiple WP Plugins At Once
You can delete all inactive plugins at once, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be removed.
Note: To delete any plugins that are presently 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) …
Once you have done this, specify Deactivate from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click the Apply button …
All 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 on the main menu …
Click the check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to remove by checking their individual boxes …
Once you have selected all of 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 display 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 delete all of the selected plugins …
Your selected plugins will be deleted …
WordPress Management Tools For Plugins
In addition to the methods shown above, you can use other WordPress plugins that help you manage your WordPress 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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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now