In another article, we provide a detailed explanation of what plugins are all about and how you can use plugins to easily enhance your website’s capabilities.
To view the article, go here:
In this tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping all plugins up-to-date, how to safely update and delete plugins from your site, and discover useful plugin management tools if you manage multiple WordPress sites or blogs.
Why Your Plugins Need Upgrading
New versions of WordPress are regularly released (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in earlier releases, as well as to improve existing features or introduce new functionality to users.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, there will typically be new new update notices for WordPress plugins each time a new version of WordPress is announced.
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. Whenever this happens, there is a potential for problems 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 this is needed). All you have to do on your end, is simply maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is very simple, quick and easy to do.
Keeping your plugins regularly updated 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 step-by-step tutorial below explains how to update and delete plugins without web coding knowledge or skills needed.
Updating And Deleting Plugins – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress utilizes several ways of letting you know when plugins on your site need updating.
For example, you can see how many plugins need to be updated from your Administration site simply by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
In the screenshot below, you can see that 9 plugins need to be updated …
You can also tell how many plugins need to be updated from your WP Admin Toolbar (as shown below, a number of plugins require updating) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also provides information about plugins that need to be updated …
As well as providing information about which plugins have updates available, the Plugins page provides links to the plugin download sites and gives you the option to update your plugin individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by showing you how to upgrade one plugin at a time.
How To Update Plugins Individually
Always make a complete backup of your website before updating your website or blog.
From your WP admin menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” area. This table of plugins can be quite long depending on how many plugins you have added to your site …
(WordPress Plugins Screen)
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 area 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 reduced in size with a pagination feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Search” feature …
WordPress displays plugin information in different color backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (inactive vs. active and outdated vs up-to-date) …
Plugins that require upgrading 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 happens with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat this process for any other plugins on your site that need to be updated, or see the section below if you have many plugins that are out-of-date and would like to upgrade them all in bulk.
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Now that you know how to upgrade one plugin at a time, let’s show you how to bulk-upgrade WP plugins.
Bulk-Upgrading Plugins
To update multiple plugins in one go directly inside your dashboard, 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 in 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 your plugin list, select Update …
Click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will all be updated at once …
After all updates have been completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to the Plugins screen, or choose another option from the WP admin 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) …
You have updated all plugins on your site!
(When your site or blog uses the latest version of all plugins, update notices do not display)
Now that you know how to upgrade WP plugins, it’s time to learn how to uninstall plugins from your site or blog.
How To Delete Plugins
At times, you may decide to delete plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This can help to conserve resource usage and also eliminates causes of problems.
In this section, we show you how to safely deactivate and delete unused plugins from your site.
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 dashboard menu and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins area, find the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is deactivated.
Hint: Inactive plugins appear in a different colored background than active plugins and display an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, then click on Deactivate before going any further …
Once you have deactivated the plugin, click Delete …
If you need 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 …
A complete list of files associated with the plugin selected for removalwill be listed on your screen …
If you are absolutely sure about going ahead and deleting the selected plugin, just click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugins and related files will be deleted …
Bulk-Deleting Plugins
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 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 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 the Apply button …
All selected plugins will be deactivated …
To delete all or some of the inactive plugins, go to the “Plugins” screen and click on the Inactive link in the Plugins menu …
Tick the checkbox next to 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 ticked all the checkboxes next to the plugins that you want deleted, choose Delete from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click the Apply button …
A list of all selected plugins will be displayed 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 want to proceed to the next step and delete all of the plugins listed …
All selected plugins will be deleted …
WordPress Management Tools For WP Plugins
As well as the methods shown above, you can use a number of 3rd-party tools 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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"This is AMAZING! I had learnt about how to use WordPress previously, but this covers absolutely everything and more!! Incredible value! Thank you!" - Monique, Warrior Forum