In a separate article, we explain what plugins are and how you can use these to add new features to your site without editing code.
To read the article, go here:
In this tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping WordPress plugins up-to-date, how to upgrade and uninstall plugins, and some plugin management tips.
Why Many Of Your Plugins Need To Be Frequently Upgraded
New WordPress versions are regularly released (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in older software 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 notifications for WordPress plugins every.
The reason for this, is because most WordPress plugins are created by third-party developers, so sometimes code or features in the newly-released WordPress version conflict with plugins that were developed for a previous version. When this happens, conflicts can sometimes develop.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are fairly 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 as a WordPress user, is keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is really easy to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date and removing old plugins you no longer use is part of good WordPress management and helps to avoid any potential problems or errors.
The tutorial below explains how to automatically upgrade and delete plugins without requiring web coding or programming skills or knowledge.
Upgrading And Deleting Plugins – Tutorial
WordPress employs a few ways of letting users know when plugins on their blog need updating.
For example, you can instantly see how many plugins need updating from your Admin area just by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
In the screenshot below, nine WordPress plugins have older versions that need to be updated …
You can also check how many plugins need to be updated from your WordPress Toolbar (the example below shows that a number of plugins should be updated) …
The Plugins screen (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you which plugins need to be updated …
As well as providing information about which plugins have updates available, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin developer pages and gives you the option to update the plugin individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by showing you how to update plugins individually.
Update Individual A Plugin
Always make a full backup of your data and files before upgrading your website or blog.
From your dashboard menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” section will display in your browser. The list of plugins can flow down your screen for some length, depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site …
(The WordPress Plugins Screen)
Notes:
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 page by default), 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 …
You will see information about plugins in different backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (inactive vs. active and up-to-date vs. outdated) …
Plugins that require upgrading have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin] available” …
Find the plugin that needs updating and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides smooth and fast plugin updates, so that updating your plugins happens with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat the above process for any other 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 upgrade all plugins in one simple operation.
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Now that you know how to update WP plugins individually, it’s time to learn how to bulk-upgrade WordPress plugins.
Bulk-Upgrading Plugins
To bulk-upgrade WP plugins simultaneously using the automatic update feature, go to the “Plugins” section and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Click the checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to upgrade by checking its box …
In the Bulk Actions drop-down menu above the table of plugins, choose Update …
And then click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will begin to update automatically …
Once all updates have completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to your Plugins area, or select another option from the WP dashboard menu …
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” messages no longer display on your screen, toolbar and menus) …
All plugins have now been upgraded!
(When your site or blog uses the latest version of all plugins, update messages no longer show)
Now that you know how to automatically update inside your dashboard, let’s take a look at how to safely uninstall plugins from your WordPress blog or website.
How To Safely Delete WordPress Plugins
At times, you may want to remove WP plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This helps to decrease resources on your server and helps to eliminate potential problems.
In this section, we show you how to safely deactivate and delete unused plugins from your 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 reinstall your site.
To remove a plugin, go to your main menu and select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins page, find the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is inactive.
Hint: Inactive plugins appear 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 would like to browse 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” section …
The entire list of files associated with the plugin selected for deletionwill be listed on your screen …
If you are absolutely certain that you want to go ahead and delete these plugin, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugins and related files will be removed from your server …
How To Delete Multiple WordPress Plugins In Bulk
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be removed.
Note: To delete any plugins that are presently 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 checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …
Next, select Deactivate from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click Apply …
Your selected plugins will be deactivated …
To delete all or some of the inactive plugins on your site, go to the “Plugins” section and click on the Inactive link in the Plugins menu …
Click on the check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to delete by checking its box …
Once you have ticked all the check boxes next to the plugins that you want to delete, select Delete from the Bulk Actions pull-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 sure that you would like to proceed to the next step and delete all of the selected plugins …
The plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Plugin Management – Tools
In addition to the methods shown above, you can use Free and Premium WordPress plugins that let 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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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)