In another post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use plugins to add new features to your web site with no software programming skills required.
To read the article, go here:
In this tutorial you will learn why plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to upgrade and uninstall plugins from your site, and discover useful tips to help you better manage your plugins if you currently manage multiple WordPress sites or blogs.
Why Some Plugins Need Updating
WordPress regularly updates its software (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in earlier releases, and to improve existing features.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, you can expect to see at least some new new update notices for plugins when new versions of WordPress are released.
The reason for this, is because most plugins for WordPress are created by third-party developers, so sometimes code or features in the newly-released WordPress version conflict with plugins that were created and tested to work with a previous version. Whenever this happens, problems 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 required). All you have to do on your end, is keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is really easy to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins regularly updated and deleting old plugins you no longer need is part of good WordPress management and helps to avoid potential problems and errors.
The tutorial below explains how to automatically upgrade and delete plugins safely in WordPress with no web coding knowledge needed.
Updating And Deleting Plugins Safely In WordPress – Tutorial
WordPress utilizes several methods of letting users know when plugins on their blog need to be updated.
For example, you can see how many plugins are out-of-date from your Administration site by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, 9 plugins have older versions that need to be updated …
You can also tell how many plugins need updating from your WP Admin Toolbar (as shown below, a number of plugins need to be updated) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also lets you know which plugins need to be updated …
In addition to providing information about which plugins have updates available, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin developer sites and gives you the option to update the plugin individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by learning how to update one plugin at a time.
How To Upgrade Single A Plugin
Always make a full backup of your site files and database before updating your blog or website.
In your main menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” section will display in your browser. The list of plugins can flow down your page for some length, depending on the number of plugins you have added to your site …
(The WordPress Plugins Page)
Useful Tips:
If you have too many plugins installed and would like to reduce the number of plugins displayed on the page, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins area and type in a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show on the page by default, i.e. “999”), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
Your Plugins page will now be reduced in size with a ’numbered pages’ feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Search” feature …
WordPress displays plugin information in different color backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (inactive vs. active and outdated vs up-to-date) …
Plugins that need updating show the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Insert Plugin Name] available” …
Locate the plugin that needs to be updated and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides smooth & simpler plugin updates, so that the process of updating your plugins takes place “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat this process for all 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 all plugins in one simple operation.
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Now that you know how to update individual plugins, the next step is to learn how to upgrade many plugins simultaneously.
How To Bulk-Update WordPress Plugins
To bulk-update WP plugins simultaneously using the automatic updating feature, go to the “Plugins” section 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 only the plugins you want to update by checking its box …
In the Bulk Actions pull-down menu above the plugin list, choose Update …
Click Apply …
Your selected plugins will automatically begin to update …
After all updates have been completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to your Plugins screen, or choose a different section of your dashboard …
Once your plugins are all up-to-date, any plugin alerts 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, update alerts no longer show)
Now that you know how to automatically upgrade WP in the admin dashboard, let’s show you how to uninstall plugins from your site or blog.
Deleting Plugins
As part of smart WordPress site management practices, it’s a good idea to remove plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This decreases server resources and eliminate potential problems.
In this section, we show you how to deactivate and 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 restore your site.
To delete a plugin, go to your dashboard menu and select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins area, find the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is deactivated.
Hint: Inactive plugins use 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 …
Click on Delete …
If you need to review a list of 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” section …
The entire list of files associated with the plugin selected for deletionwill display on your screen …
If you are absolutely sure about going ahead and deleting the plugin, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugin(s) will be deleted from your WordPress installation …
How To Safely Bulk-Delete Plugins
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 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 check box, or selecting the check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …
Next, specify 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 on your site, go to the “Plugins” page and click on the Inactive link on the main menu …
Select all of the plugins you want to delete by either placing a tick next to their checkbox, or click on the checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select and delete all inactive plugins …
Once you have ticked all the checkboxes next to the plugins that you want to delete, choose 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 would like to go ahead and delete all of the selected plugins …
The plugins will be deleted …
WordPress Management Tools For Plugins
As well as 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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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)