Tag: Update WordPress Plugins

In a separate post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use these to add new features to your website without editing code.

To view this article, go here:

• WP Plugins Enhance Your Web Site’s Capability

In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn why WordPress plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to automatically upgrade and uninstall plugins from your site, and some plugin management tools.

Why Many Of Your Plugins Need Frequent Updating

New versions of WordPress are regularly released (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in earlier releases, as well as to improve existing features.

Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, there will typically be new new update notices for plugins each time a new WordPress version is made available.

The reason for this, is because most WordPress plugins are created by third-party developers, so sometimes code in the newly-released WordPress version conflict with plugins that were built for a previous version. When this happens, conflicts can sometimes develop.

Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are very proactive when it comes to making sure that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if this is required). All you need to do as a WordPress user, is simply maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is very simple and easy to do.

Keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date and deleting old plugins you no longer need is an essential aspect of good WordPress management and helps to avoid potential errors or conflicts.

The step-by-step tutorial below explains how to automatically upgrade and delete WordPress plugins without web coding knowledge required.

How To Automatically Update And Delete Plugins From The Dashboard – Step-By-Step Tutorial

WordPress uses a number of different ways to alert users when plugins need updating.

For example, you can see ‘at a glance’ how many plugins are out-of-date from your Admin area just by looking at the “Plugins” menu.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 see how many plugins need to be updated from your WP Admin Toolbar (the screenshot below shows that nine plugins need updating) …

The Plugins page (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also notifies you about plugins that need to be updated …

In addition to providing information about plugins that have available updates, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin download pages and gives you the option to update the plugins instantly …

Let’s start by learning how to upgrade one plugin at a time.

Update Single A Plugin

We recommend performing a full backup of your site files and database before making any upgrades to your website or blog.

From your admin menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …

You will be taken to the “Plugins” section. The list of plugins can flow down your screen for a while, depending on the number of plugins you have installed in your site …

(Plugins Page)

Useful Information:

If you have too many plugins and would like to reduce the number of plugins displayed on the page, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins screen and type in a smaller number of items per page (by default, all plugins display on the page), then click Apply …

Your Plugins area 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” field …

You will see information about plugins in different color backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (inactive vs. active and out-of-date vs up-to-date) …

Plugins that require upgrading have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin] available” …

Find the plugin that needs to be updated and click on the update now link …

WordPress provides 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 updating, or refer to the section below if you have several plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update them all at the same time.

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Now that you know how to update individual plugins, let’s show you how to bulk-upgrade plugins.

How To Upgrade Multiple Plugins Simultaneously

To bulk-update WP plugins 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 the check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to upgrade by checking their individual boxes …

In the Bulk Actions pull-down menu at the top of the page, choose Update …

And then click Apply …

The plugins you have selected will update all at once …

Once all updates have completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to the Plugins screen, or visit another section of your dashboard …

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” messages no longer display on your screen, toolbar and menus) …

All plugins have now been upgraded to their latest versions!

(When your plugins are up-to-date, update notices no longer display)

Now that you know how to update WordPress plugins, it’s time to learn how to safely delete plugins safely from your blog or website.

How To Delete Plugins

It’s a good idea to uninstall plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This helps to decrease resources on your server and help to reduce causes of some problems.

In this section, we show you how to safely remove unused plugins from your WordPress 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 restore your site.

To delete a plugin, go to your main menu and select Plugins > Installed Plugins …

In the Plugins section, locate the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is inactive.

Hint: Inactive plugins have a different colored background than active plugins and display an “Activate” link below the plugin name …

If the plugin is active, click on Deactivate before continuing with your plugin deletion …

Click Delete …

If you need to have a look at 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 associated with the plugin selected for deletionwill display on your screen …

If you are absolutely sure about going ahead and deleting the selected plugin files, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …

The selected plugins and related files will be deleted …

How To Bulk-Delete Plugins

You can delete all inactive plugins at once, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be cleared.

Note: To delete any plugins that are presently active, your will 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, 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, go to the “Plugins” area and click on the Inactive link in the Plugins menu …

Select all of the plugins you want to delete by either placing a tick next to their checkbox, or click on the check box next to the Plugin column header to select and delete all inactive plugins …

Once you have ticked all the checkboxes next to the plugins that you want to delete, choose Delete from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …

Click Apply …

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 want to proceed to the next step and delete all of the selected plugins …

The plugins will be deleted …

Managing WP Plugins – Useful Tools

In addition to the methods shown above, you can use a range of third-party tools that help you 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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