In another post, we provide an overview of what plugins are about and how you can use these to easily add new features to your website or blog without editing code.
To view this article, go here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn why WordPress plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to update and remove plugins from your site, and discover some great plugin management tips.
Why Some Plugins Need To Be Frequently Updated
New versions of WordPress are regularly released (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in older releases, and 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 updates for WordPress plugins every.
The reason for this, is because most plugins for WordPress are created by external developers, so sometimes features in the new WordPress version conflict with plugins that were built for a previous version. Whenever this happens, there is a potential for conflicts to sometimes occur.
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 required). All you have to do as a website owner, is simply maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is very simple to do.
Keeping your plugins up-to-date and removing old plugins you no longer need is part of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid errors and conflicts.
The WordPress step-by-step tutorial below explains how to upgrade and delete plugins safely in the dashboard without touching web code.
How To Automatically Update And Delete Plugins Safely – Tutorial
WordPress uses a number of different ways to let you know when your plugins need updating.
For example, you can instantly see how many plugins are out-of-date inside your Admin area just by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
In the screenshot below, you can see that nine plugins need to be updated …
You can also see how many plugins need updating from your WP Admin Toolbar (as shown below, several plugins should be updated) …
The Plugins page (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also notifies you about plugins that need to be updated …
In addition to providing information about which plugins have available updates, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin download pages and gives you the option to update your plugins instantly …
Let’s start by showing you how to update individual plugins.
How To Update WordPress Plugins One At A Time
We recommend performing a full backup of your site files and database before making any updates to your website or blog.
In your main menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” page will display in your browser. This page can be quite lengthy depending on how many plugins you have added to your blog …
(Plugins Page)
Useful 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 screen and enter a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show on the page by default), then click Apply …
Your Plugins page will now be made more manageable with a ’numbered pages’ feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Plugin Search” field …
You will see plugin information in different color backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (inactive vs. active and up-to-date vs. out-of-date) …
Plugins that need 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 and fast plugin updates, so that updating your plugins happens “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat the above process for all plugins on your site that need updating, or see the section below if you have many plugins that are out-of-date and would like to upgrade all plugins at once.
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Now that you know how to update one plugin at a time, it’s time to learn how to update a bunch of plugins simultaneously.
How To Bulk-Upgrade Plugins
To update multiple plugins in one go using the automatic update feature, go to the “Plugins” area and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Tick the checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to update by checking their individual boxes …
In the Bulk Actions drop-down menu above the table of plugins, select Update …
And then click Apply …
Your selected plugins will begin updating …
Once all plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to the Plugins section, or select another option from the main menu …
Once your plugins are all up-to-date, the plugin notifications will 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 to their latest versions!
(When your plugins are all up-to-date, update alerts no longer display)
Now that you know how to upgrade your plugins, let’s show you how to safely uninstall plugins safely from your site or blog.
Deleting WP Plugins
At times, you may choose to delete WP plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This helps to reduce resources on your server and will help you avoid potential problems.
In this section, we show you how to safely delete unused plugins from your WordPress site or blog.
We strongly recommend creating 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 select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins area, find the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is inactive.
Hint: Inactive plugins have a different background color 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 …
Click Delete …
If you need to review a list of all the files that will be deleted before going ahead, then click on the “Click to view entire list of files which will be deleted” link in the “Delete Plugin” section …
All files belonging to the plugin that you are about to remove will display on your screen …
If you are certain that you want to proceed and delete the selected plugin, just click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugins and related files will be removed from your WordPress installation …
Bulk-Deleting WP Plugins
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins, 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 check box, 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 pull-down menu …
Click Apply …
All selected plugins will be deactivated …
Once you have deactivated these 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 checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select and delete all inactive plugins …
Once you have ticked all the check boxes next to the plugins that you want to delete, specify 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 would like to go ahead and delete all of the selected plugins …
All plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Useful Tools For Managing Plugins
As well as the methods shown above, you can install a range of third-party tools to 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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