In another article, we provide a detailed explanation of what WordPress plugins are about and how you can use plugins to easily enhance your web site’s functionality.
To view this article, go here:
In this tutorial you will learn why WordPress plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to automatically upgrade and remove your WordPress plugins, and useful tools to help you better manage your plugins.
Why Plugins Need To Be Regularly Upgraded
New WordPress versions are regularly released (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in previous releases, as well as to improve existing features or introduce new functionality to WordPress users.
Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, there will typically be new new update notices for WordPress plugins when WordPress releases an updated version.
The reason for this, is because most plugins for WordPress are created by external developers, so sometimes code or features in the new WordPress version conflict with plugins that were developed and tested with 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 ensuring that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if needed). All you need to do as a WordPress user, is simply maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is really easy and simple to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date and deleting old plugins you no longer use is part of good WordPress management and helps to avoid any potential conflicts or errors.
The WordPress step-by-step tutorial below explains how to update and delete plugins in the dashboard without requiring coding skills.
Upgrading And Deleting Plugins Safely – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress has a few methods to alert you 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For example, you can see ‘at a glance’ how many plugins are out-of-date as soon as you log into your Administration site simply by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, you can see that nine WordPress plugins need to be updated …
You can also check how many plugins need to be updated from your WP Notification Toolbar (in the example below, you can again see that nine plugins need updating) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you what plugins need updating …
As well as providing information about plugins that have updates available, the Plugins screen provides links to the plugin download sites and gives you the option to update your plugin individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by learning how to update individual WordPress plugins.
How To Upgrade Single A Plugin
Always make a backup of your site files and database before updating your blog or website.
In your main menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” screen will display in your browser. The list of plugins can flow down your page for a while, depending on the number of plugins you have added to your site …
(Plugins Page)
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 enter a smaller number of items per page (by default, all plugins display on the screen), then click Apply …
Your Plugins section will now be reduced in size with a ’numbered pages’ feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Search Plugins” box …
WordPress displays plugin information in different backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (active vs. inactive and up-to-date vs. out-of-date) …
Plugins in need of updating display the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin] 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 process, so that the process of updating your plugins takes place “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat this process for any other plugins on your site that need to be updated, or refer to the section below if you have a number of plugins that are out-of-date and would like to upgrade all plugins at the same time.
***
Now that you know how to update plugins one at a time, the next step is to learn how to bulk-update plugins.
Bulk-Updating WP Plugins
To update multiple WP plugins at the same time from your admin area, go to the “Plugins” section and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Click on the check box next to 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 dropdown menu above your plugin table, select Update …
Click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will begin the update process …
Once your plugins have all been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to the Plugins screen, 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) …
All plugins have now been updated!
(When your plugins are up-to-date, notification icons do not display)
Now that you know how to upgrade your plugins, it’s time to learn how to delete plugins from your blog or website.
Deleting WP Plugins
It’s a good idea to remove inactive plugins. This helps to decrease resource usage and help to minimize problems.
In this section, we show you how to 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 restore your site.
To remove a plugin, go to your admin menu and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins area, locate the plugin you want to delete 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, then click on Deactivate before proceeding with your plugin deletion …
Click on Delete …
If you want to review a list of 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” page …
All files associated with the plugin selected for removalwill display on your screen …
If you are positively certain about going ahead and deleting the plugin files, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugin(s) will be deleted …
How To Bulk-Delete WordPress Plugins
You can delete all inactive plugins at once, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be deleted.
Note: To delete any plugins that are currently 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 checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …
Next, choose Deactivate from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click Apply …
All 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 …
Select all of the plugins you want to delete by either placing a tick next to their check box, or click on the check box next to the Plugin column header to select and delete all inactive plugins …
Once you have selected all of the plugins that you want to delete, select Delete from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click Apply …
A list of all selected plugins will show up in the Delete Plugins screen. 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 remove all of the selected plugins …
The plugins will be deleted …
Managing WordPress Plugins – Useful Tools
As well as 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.
***
"Your training is the best in the world! It is simple, yet detailed, direct, understandable, memorable, and complete." Andrea Adams, FinancialJourney.org