In a previous post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use plugins to easily add new features to your blog with no technical skills required.
You can view this article here:
In this tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date, how to automatically update and delete your WordPress plugins, and discover practical tools to help you better manage your plugins.
Why Plugins Need Updating
New WordPress versions 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, there will typically be new new update notices for plugins every.
The reason for this, is because most plugins for WordPress are created by external developers, so sometimes code in the new WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were built for a previous version. When this happens, conflicts can sometimes occur.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are quite proactive when it comes to ensuring that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if required). All you need to do on your end, is just keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is really easy to do.
Keeping your plugins up-to-date and deleting old plugins you no longer need is an essential aspect of good WordPress management and helps to avoid any potential errors and conflicts.
The WordPress tutorial below explains how to automatically upgrade and delete plugins in WordPress with no web programming skills required.
How To Upgrade And Delete Plugins – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress employs a number of different ways of letting you know when your plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can see how many plugins are out-of-date from your Admin area simply by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
In the screenshot below, you can see that nine plugins have older versions that need updating …
You can also view how many plugins need to be updated from your WordPress Administration Toolbar (as shown below, a number of plugins should be updated) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also lets you know which plugins need to be updated …
In addition to 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 your plugins instantly …
Let’s start by showing you how to upgrade plugins individually.
Updating Single Plugins
We strongly recommend making a complete backup of your website before updating your website.
From your main menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” page. The list of plugins can go down your screen for a while, depending on how many plugins you have installed in your blog …
(The WordPress Plugins Screen)
Useful Information:
If you have too many plugins installed and would like to reduce the number of plugins displaying on the screen, 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 screen by default, i.e. “999”), then click Apply …
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 information about plugins in different backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (active vs. inactive and outdated vs up-to-date) …
Plugins that need upgrading show the following 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 has done away with the loading screen when updating plugins and streamlined the process, so that updating your plugins takes place with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat this process for all plugins on your site that need to be updated, or refer to the section below if you have a number of plugins that are out-of-date and would like to upgrade them all in one simple operation.
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Now that you know how to update one WP plugin at a time, let’s show you how to bulk-update WordPress plugins.
Bulk-Upgrading Plugins
To upgrade multiple plugins in one go directly inside your dashboard, go to the “Plugins” screen and click on the Update Available 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 upgrade by checking its box …
In the Bulk Actions dropdown menu above your plugin table, choose Update …
Click Apply …
Your selected plugins will all be updated at once …
After all updates have been completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to your Plugins section, or visit a different section of your dashboard …
Once your plugins are all up-to-date, the plugin notifications 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 notices do not display)
Now that you know how to automatically upgrade in the admin dashboard, it’s time to learn how to remove plugins from your site or blog.
How To Delete WP Plugins
Occasionally, you may decide to delete WordPress plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This helps to reduce resources on your server and help you avoid potential problems.
In this section, we show you how to safely remove unused plugins from your WordPress site or blog.
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 restore your site.
To remove a plugin, go to your admin menu and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins screen, find the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is inactive.
Hint: Inactive plugins appear in a different background color than active plugins and display an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, then click on Deactivate before continuing …
Click on Delete …
If you want to have a look at 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 …
A complete list of files belonging to the plugin that you are about to remove will be listed on your screen …
If you are positively certain about going ahead and deleting the plugin, then click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugins and related files will be deleted …
Bulk-Deleting 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 presently 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, select Deactivate from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click the Apply button …
Your selected plugins will be deactivated …
To delete all or some of the inactive plugins on your site, go to the “Plugins” screen and click on the Inactive link in the Plugins menu …
Select all of the plugins you want to delete by either placing a tick next to their check box, or click on the check box next to the Plugin column header to select and delete all inactive plugins …
Once you have ticked all the check boxes next to the plugins that you want to delete, select 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 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 remove all of the plugins listed …
Your plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Practical Management Tools For Plugins
As well as the methods shown above, you can use WordPress plugins to 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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"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum