In another blog post, we provide an overview of what plugins are about and how you can use these to add new features and functionality to your website or blog without touching code.
You can view this article here:
In this tutorial you will learn why plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to automatically upgrade and delete plugins from your site, and some plugin management tools if you currently manage multiple WordPress sites.
Why Your Plugins Need Regular Updating
New versions of WordPress are regularly released (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in previous versions, and to improve existing features.
Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, you can expect to see at least some new updates for plugins each time a new WordPress version is announced.
This is because most plugins for WordPress are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes 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 conflicts to 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 have to do as a WordPress user, is keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is very easy and simple to do.
Keeping your plugins up-to-date and deleting old plugins you no longer use is part of good WordPress management and helps to avoid any problems or errors.
The WordPress step-by-step tutorial below explains how to upgrade and delete plugins in WordPress without editing web code.
How To Upgrade And Delete Plugins From Your WP Admin Dashboard – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress uses several ways to inform users when plugins need updating.
For example, you can see ‘at a glance’ how many plugins are out-of-date as soon as you log into your Administration area simply by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, nine WP plugins have older versions that need to be updated …
You can also tell how many plugins need to be updated from your WP Toolbar (in the example below, you can see how many plugins should be updated) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also lets you know which plugins need updating …
As well as providing information about plugins that have available updates, the Plugins screen provides links to the plugin developer pages and gives you the option to update the plugins with one-click …
Let’s start by showing you how to update one WordPress plugin at a time.
How To Update Single WordPress Plugins
Always make a backup of your data and files before upgrading your website or blog.
In your main menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” area will display in your browser. The list of plugins can be quite long depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site …
(Plugins Section)
Additional Info:
If you have too many plugins installed and would like to reduce the number of plugins displaying on your screen, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins page and enter a smaller number of items per page (by default, all plugins display on the screen), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
Your Plugins section will now be made more manageable with a pagination feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Search” field …
You will see plugin information in different color backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (inactive vs. active and outdated vs up-to-date) …
Plugins in need of upgrading have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin] available” …
Locate the plugin that needs to be updated and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides smooth & simple plugin updates, so that updating your plugins happens with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat the above process for any other plugins on your site that need to be updated, or refer to the section below if you have many plugins that are out-of-date and would like to upgrade them all at the same time.
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Now that you know how to update WP plugins one at a time, the next step is to learn how to upgrade many plugins simultaneously.
How To Update Many Plugins Simultaneously
To bulk-update WordPress plugins simultaneously using the automatic upgrading feature, go to the “Plugins” section and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Click on 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 above the plugin table, choose Update …
And then click Apply …
Your selected plugins will automatically begin to update …
Once all updates are finished, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to the Plugins screen, or select another option from the sidebar menu …
Once all plugins are up-to-date, the plugin notifications disappear (i.e. the “at-a-glance” indicators and “There is a new version of XYZ plugin available” notices no longer display on your screen, toolbar and menus) …
All plugins have now been upgraded!
(When plugins on your site are up-to-date, update notices do not display)
Now that you know how to update your in your dashboard, it’s time to learn how to safely uninstall plugins from your WordPress blog or website.
How To Safely Remove Plugins
It’s a good idea to delete plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This can decrease resources on your server and eliminate problems.
In this section, you will learn how to safely remove unused plugins from your blog or site.
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 delete a plugin, go to your admin menu and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins section, locate the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is deactivated.
Hint: Inactive plugins use a different background color than active plugins and show an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, then click on Deactivate before proceeding with your plugin deletion …
Click Delete …
If you would like to review a list of all the files that will be deleted before taking the next step, then click on the “Click to view entire list of files which will be deleted” link in the “Delete Plugin” screen …
All files belonging to the plugin selected for removalwill be listed 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 …
The selected plugin(s) will be deleted …
Deleting Several WordPress Plugins Simultaneously
You can delete all inactive plugins at once, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be removed.
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 checkbox 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 the Apply button …
Your 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 …
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 the plugins that you want deleted, choose Delete from the Bulk Actions dropdown 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 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 …
Managing WP Plugins – WordPress Tools
In addition to the methods shown above, you can install a range 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.
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