In another article, we explain what plugins are and how you can use these to add new features to your blog with no software programming skills required.
You can read the article here:
In this tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping plugins up-to-date, how to safely update and remove your WordPress plugins, and discover useful tools to help you better manage your plugins.
Why Many Of Your WordPress Plugins Need To Be Upgraded
The WordPress software is constantly updated (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in earlier software releases, as well as to improve existing features or introduce new functionality to WordPress users.
Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, you can expect to see at least some new updates for WordPress plugins each time a new version of WordPress is released.
This is because most WordPress plugins are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes code in the newly-released WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were built for a previous version. When this happens, there is a potential for conflicts to sometimes occur.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are very proactive when it comes to making sure that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if needed). All you need to do as a website owner, is simply keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is really simple to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date and removing old plugins you no longer use is an essential aspect of good WordPress management and helps to avoid any conflicts and errors.
The WordPress step-by-step tutorial below explains how to automatically update and delete plugins safely inside the WP dashboard without requiring web coding skills or knowledge.
How To Update And Delete Plugins Safely Inside The WordPress Dashboard – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress has a number of different methods of letting you know when your plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can immediately see how many plugins need to be updated as soon as you log into your Admin area simply by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
In the example below, you can see that 9 plugins are out of date and need updating …
You can also tell how many plugins need updating from your WordPress Notification Toolbar (in the example below, you can again see that 9 plugins require updating) …
The Plugins page (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also provides information about plugins that need to be updated …
In addition to providing information about which plugins have updates available, the Plugins page provides links to the plugin developer sites and gives you the option to update the plugin with one-click …
Let’s start by showing you how to upgrade WP plugins individually.
Upgrading WordPress Plugins Individually
Always make a full backup of your site files and database before upgrading your website.
In your main menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” screen. The list of plugins can go down your page for some length, depending on the number of plugins you have added to your site …
(Plugins Section)
Useful Information:
If you have too many plugins and would like to reduce the number of plugins displayed on your page, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins page and enter a smaller number of items per page (by default, all plugins display on the screen), then click Apply …
Your Plugins section will now be made more manageable with a page scrolling feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Search Installed Plugins” function …
You will see information about plugins in different backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (active vs. inactive and out-of-date vs up-to-date) …
Plugins that need updating display the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Insert Plugin Name] available” …
Locate the plugin that you want to update and click on the update now link …
WordPress has done away with the loading screen when updating plugins and streamlined the plugin update process, so that updating your plugins happens “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat the above process for all plugins on your site that need updating, or refer to the section below if you have many plugins that are out-of-date and would like to upgrade them all at the same time.
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Now that you know how to update plugins individually, it’s time to learn how to upgrade many plugins simultaneously.
How To Update Many Plugins
To update multiple plugins simultaneously using the automatic upgrading feature, go to the “Plugins” screen and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Tick 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 drop down menu at the top of the page, select Update …
And then click Apply …
Your selected plugins will begin the update process …
After your plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to the Plugins section, or choose another option from the WP admin menu …
Once your plugins are all 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) …
All plugins are now up-to-date!
(When your plugins are up-to-date, the notification icons disappear)
Now that you know how to automatically upgrade WordPress inside your WP dashboard, let’s show you how to safely delete plugins from your WordPress blog or website.
Deleting Plugins
As part of smart WordPress site management, it’s a good idea to uninstall plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This conserves resource usage and also help to minimize problems.
In this section, you will learn how to uninstall unused plugins from your site or blog.
Always create 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 restore your site.
To remove a plugin, go to your admin menu and select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins page, locate the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is deactivated.
Hint: Inactive plugins are listed in a different colored background than active plugins and show an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, then click on Deactivate before continuing with your plugin deletion …
Click Delete …
If you need to review a list of 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” screen …
The entire list of files associated with the plugin selected for removalwill be listed on your screen …
If you are positively certain that you would like to proceed and delete the plugin files, 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 deleted.
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 checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …
Next, select Deactivate from the Bulk Actions drop 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” screen and click on the Inactive link in the Plugins menu …
Click on the checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to remove by checking its box …
Once you have selected all the plugins that you want to delete, choose Delete from the Bulk Actions dropdown 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 sure that you would like to proceed to the next step and remove all of the selected plugins …
Your plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Managing WP Plugins – Useful Tools
In addition to the methods shown above, you can install 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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"I have used the tutorials to teach all of my clients and it has probably never been so easy for everyone to learn WordPress ... Now I don't need to buy all these very expensive video courses that often don't deliver what they promise." - Stefan Wendt, Internet Marketing Success Group