In another article, we explain what plugins are and how you can use plugins to add new features and functionality to your blog with no software programming skills required.
You can view this article here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn why plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to automatically update and uninstall plugins from your site, and discover some great plugin management tools.
Why Some WordPress Plugins Need To Be Regularly Upgraded
New WordPress versions are regularly released (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in earlier software releases, as well as to improve existing features.
Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, you can expect to see at least some new new update notices for plugins each time a new WordPress version is released.
The reason for this, is because most WordPress plugins are created by third-party developers, so sometimes features in the newly-released WordPress version conflict with plugins that were developed for a previous version. When this happens, problems can sometimes occur.
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 just keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is very simple, quick and easy to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins regularly updated and deleting old plugins you no longer use is part of good WordPress management and helps to avoid any potential conflicts or errors.
The tutorial below explains how to update and delete plugins from the WP dashboard without web programming skills necessary.
How To Update And Delete Plugins – Tutorial
WordPress employs a few ways to alert users when plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can see ‘at a glance’ how many plugins are out-of-date as soon as you log into your Admin area simply by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
In the screenshot below, 9 plugins have older versions that need to be updated …
You can also check how many plugins need updating from your WordPress Toolbar (the screenshot below shows how many plugins should be updated) …
The Plugins section (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 developer pages and gives you the option to update the plugins instantly …
Let’s start by learning how to upgrade one plugin at a time.
How To Upgrade Plugins One At A Time
Always make a complete backup of your site files and database before updating your website.
In your dashboard menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” section. The table of plugins can be quite lengthy depending on how many plugins you have added to your site …
(Plugins Section)
Additional Information:
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 type in a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show on the screen by default), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
Your Plugins area 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 “Search” function …
You will see plugin information in different color backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (inactive vs. active and out-of-date vs up-to-date) …
Plugins in need of upgrading show the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin Name] available” …
Select the plugin that needs to be updated and click on the update now link …
WordPress has done away with the loading screen when updating plugins and streamlined the plugin updating process, so that the process of updating your plugins takes place “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat this process for any other plugins on your site that need updating, or see the section below if you have several plugins that are out-of-date and would like to upgrade them all at once.
***
Now that you know how to update individual WP plugins, the next step is to learn how to bulk-upgrade plugins.
Bulk-Upgrading Plugins
To bulk-update plugins from your admin area, go to the “Plugins” screen and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Tick the checkbox next to 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 automatically begin to update …
After the update process has been completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to your Plugins screen, or select another section of your dashboard …
Once your plugins are all up-to-date, the update reminders 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 have now been updated!
(When your site uses the latest version of all plugins, notification icons do not display)
Now that you know how to automatically upgrade plugins, let’s show you how to uninstall plugins from your WordPress site or blog.
Deleting WordPress Plugins
Occasionally, you may want to delete plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This decreases resources on your server and also help to reduce potential problems.
In this section, you will learn how to deactivate and delete unused plugins from your site or blog.
We strongly recommend creating 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 reinstall your site.
To delete a plugin, go to your WP admin menu and select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins section, locate the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is deactivated.
Hint: Inactive plugins have a different background color than active plugins and display an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, click on Deactivate before proceeding …
Click on Delete …
If you want to review a list of all the files that will be deleted before proceeding, then click on the “Click to view entire list of files which will be deleted” link in the “Delete Plugin” page …
The entire list of files belonging to the plugin selected for deletionwill display on your screen …
If you are absolutely certain about going ahead and deleting the plugin files, then click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugin(s) will be deleted from your server …
Bulk-Deleting WP 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 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 check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …
Once you have done this, specify Deactivate from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click Apply …
The selected plugins will be deactivated …
Once you have deactivated your plugins, click on the Inactive 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 remove by checking its box …
Once you have ticked all the checkboxes next to the plugins that you want deleted, choose Delete from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click the Apply button …
A list of all selected plugins will be displayed 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 would like to go ahead and delete all of the selected plugins …
Your selected plugins will be deleted …
WordPress Management Tools For Plugins
In addition to the methods shown above, you can install a number of 3rd-party tools 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.
***
"Your training is the best in the world! It is simple, yet detailed, direct, understandable, memorable, and complete." Andrea Adams, FinancialJourney.org