In another post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use plugins to easily enhance your blog’s functionality.
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 automatically update and delete plugins from your site, and discover some plugin management tips if you plan to manage multiple WordPress sites.
Why Some Of Your WordPress 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 use on your site, there will typically be new updates for plugins every.
This is because most plugins for WordPress are created by third-party developers, so sometimes the code in the new WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were developed for a previous version. When this happens, there is a potential for issues to sometimes develop.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are quite 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 on your end, is keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is very easy and simple to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date and removing old plugins you no longer need is an essential aspect of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid errors or conflicts.
The WordPress tutorial below explains how to automatically update and delete WordPress plugins without touching web code.
Upgrading And Deleting Plugins Safely Inside Your Dashboard – Tutorial
WordPress provides a few methods of letting users know when plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can see how many plugins need updating as soon as you log into your Administration site by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, nine WordPress plugins are out of date and need updating …
You can also tell how many plugins need to be updated from your WordPress Administration Toolbar (the example below shows how many plugins should be brought up to date) …
The Plugins screen (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also lets you know which plugins need updating …
In addition to providing information about plugins that have available updates, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin download pages and gives you the option to update the plugins instantly …
Let’s start by learning how to update individual plugins.
Upgrade Individual A Plugin
Always make a complete backup of your website before updating your website or blog.
In your WP admin menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” screen will display in your browser. This screen can be quite long depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site …
(Plugins Screen)
Useful Tips:
If you have too many plugins installed 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 (by default, all plugins display on the screen), then click Apply …
Your Plugins page 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 …
You will see information about plugins in different backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (inactive vs. active and up-to-date vs. out-of-date) …
Plugins that require upgrading have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin Name] available” …
Find the plugin that needs to be updated and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides smooth and fast plugin updates, so that updating your plugins happens “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat this process for all plugins on your site that need updating, or see the section below if you have a number of 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 upgrade individual WP plugins, the next step is to learn how to upgrade many plugins simultaneously.
Bulk-Updating Plugins
To upgrade multiple plugins in a single operation directly inside your dashboard, go to the “Plugins” page 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 its box …
In the Bulk Actions drop down menu above the plugin list, select Update …
And then click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will begin the update process …
Once your plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to your Plugins area, or visit another 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” messages no longer display) …
All plugins are now up-to-date!
(When your site or blog uses the latest version of all plugins, update icons no longer display)
Now that you know how to automatically update WP plugins, let’s take a look at how to delete plugins safely from your site or blog.
Deleting WordPress Plugins
As part of good blog management, it’s a good idea to remove inactive plugins. This conserves resources on your server and also helps to eliminate causes of problems.
In this section, we show you how to safely deactivate and delete unused plugins from your WordPress 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 reinstall your site.
To remove a plugin, go to your WP admin menu and choose 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, click on Deactivate before proceeding …
Click Delete …
If you need to have a look at all the files that will be deleted before going ahead, then click on the “Click to view entire list of files which will be deleted” link in the “Delete Plugin” page …
All files associated with the plugin that you are about to delete will display on your screen …
If you are positively certain about going ahead and deleting these plugin files, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugin(s) will be deleted …
Bulk-Deleting WordPress Plugins
You can delete all inactive plugins at once, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be uninstalled.
Note: To delete any plugins that are currently active, your will 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) …
Next, specify Deactivate from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click Apply …
All 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 …
Tick 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 of the plugins that you want deleted, choose Delete from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click Apply …
A list of all selected plugins will show up 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 sure that you want to go ahead and remove all of the plugins listed …
The plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Plugin Management – WordPress Tools
As well as the methods shown above, you can use WordPress plugins that help you 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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