In a previous post, we provide a detailed explanation of what WP plugins are all about and how you can use plugins to add new features or functionality to your website or blog without editing code.
To view this article, go here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn why WordPress plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to safely update and remove plugins, and discover some great plugin management tools.
Why Some WordPress Plugins Need Updating
The WordPress software is constantly updated (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in older software versions, as well as to improve existing features or introduce new functionality to users.
Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, you can expect to see at least some new updates for plugins every.
The reason for this, is because most WordPress plugins are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes the code in the newly-released WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were built for a previous version. Whenever this happens, there is a potential for problems to sometimes develop.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are very proactive when it comes to ensuring that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if this is needed). All you have to do on your end, is keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is really quick, simple and easy to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date and deleting old plugins you no longer need is part of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid any potential problems and errors.
The step-by-step tutorial below explains how to update and delete plugins without requiring web coding skills.
How To Update And Delete Plugins Safely In WordPress – Tutorial
WordPress employs several ways of letting you know when your plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can see how many plugins need updating from your Admin area by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
In the example below, you can see that nine plugins are out of date and need to be updated …
You can also tell how many plugins need updating from your WP Administration Toolbar (as shown below, 9 plugins need updating) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also provides information about plugins that need to be updated …
As well as providing information about which plugins have updates available, the Plugins screen provides links to the plugin download sites and gives you the option to update your plugins instantly …
Let’s start by learning how to upgrade WP plugins one at a time.
Updating Individual A Plugin
Always make a complete backup of your website before upgrading your website.
From your main menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” page will display in your browser. The table of plugins can run down your page for a while, depending on how many plugins you have added to your site …
(Plugins Section)
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 page), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
Your Plugins page 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 “Plugin Search” function …
WordPress displays plugin information in different color backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (inactive vs. active and up-to-date vs. outdated) …
Plugins that require upgrading show the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin Name] available” …
Select the plugin that you want to update and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides simpler 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 see the section below if you have several plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update them all at once.
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Now that you know how to upgrade individual plugins, let’s show you how to upgrade many plugins simultaneously.
How To Bulk-Upgrade Plugins
To bulk-update WP plugins from your admin area, go to the “Plugins” area and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Click the checkbox in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to update by checking their individual boxes …
In the Bulk Actions drop down menu above the table of plugins, select Update …
And then click Apply …
Your selected plugins will automatically begin to update …
After all plugin upgrades are finished, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to the Plugins area, or select another section of your dashboard …
Once all plugins are 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) …
You have updated all plugins on your site!
(When your plugins are up-to-date, update alerts disappear)
Now that you know how to update your inside your dashboard, let’s take a look at how to safely uninstall plugins safely from your site.
How To Remove Plugins
As part of smart WordPress blog management, it’s a good idea to remove plugins that you no longer use. This helps to decrease resource usage and help to minimize problems.
In this section, we show you how to delete unused plugins from your site or blog.
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 reinstall your site.
To remove a plugin, go to your main menu and choose Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins page, find the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is inactive.
Hint: Inactive plugins have a different colored background than active plugins and show an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, click on Deactivate before continuing with your plugin deletion …
Click 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” screen …
A complete list of files associated with the plugin selected for deletionwill display on your screen …
If you are positively sure about going ahead and deleting the plugin files, just click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugin(s) 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 cleared.
Note: To delete any plugins that are currently 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 checkbox, 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, select Deactivate from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click Apply …
Your 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 …
Click on the check box in 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 the plugins that you want to delete, choose Delete from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click the Apply button …
A list of all selected plugins will display 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 certain that you would like to go ahead and remove all of the plugins listed …
The selected plugins will be deleted …
WP Plugin Management – Useful Tools
In addition to the methods shown above, you can use WordPress plugins to 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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"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