In a previous post, we provide an overview of what plugins are about and how you can use these to easily extend your blog’s functionality.
You can read this article here:
In this tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping plugins up-to-date, how to safely upgrade and delete plugins from your site, and discover some great plugin management tools.
Why Many WordPress Plugins Need To Be Upgraded
New WordPress versions are constantly being released (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in older versions, 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 notifications for plugins every.
This is because most plugins for WordPress are created by third-party 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 issues to sometimes occur.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are very proactive when it comes to ensuring that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if required). All you need to do as a website owner, is simply keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is very easy to do.
Keeping your plugins regularly updated and deleting old plugins you no longer use is an essential aspect of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid potential conflicts or errors.
The WordPress step-by-step tutorial below explains how to automatically upgrade and delete plugins inside the dashboard without requiring web programming skills.
Updating And Deleting WordPress Plugins In Your Dashboard – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress uses a number of different methods to notify users when plugins need updating.
For example, you can instantly see how many plugins need to be updated as soon as you log into your Admin area simply by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
In the example below, you can see that 9 plugins have older versions that need updating …
You can also see how many plugins need updating from your WordPress Admin Toolbar (as shown below, a number of plugins should be brought up to date) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also notifies you about plugins that need to be updated …
In addition to providing information about plugins that have updates available, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin developer sites and gives you the option to update your plugin with one-click …
Let’s start by showing you how to update one WP plugin at a time.
How To Upgrade Plugins One At A Time
We recommend performing a backup of your site files and database before upgrading your blog or website.
From your WP admin menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” area will display in your browser. The table of plugins can flow down your page for some length, depending on how many plugins you have added to your site …
(The WordPress Plugins Screen)
Useful Info:
If you have too many plugins installed and would like to reduce the number of plugins showing 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 (all plugins show up on the screen by default), then click Apply …
Your Plugins area 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 Plugins” field …
You will see plugin information in different backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (active vs. inactive and up-to-date vs. outdated) …
Plugins in need of updating show the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Insert Plugin Name] available” …
Find the plugin that needs to be updated and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides smooth & simpler plugin updates, so that updating your plugins takes place 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 several plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update all plugins at the same time.
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Now that you know how to upgrade one plugin at a time, the next step is to learn how to bulk-update plugins.
How To Bulk-Upgrade WordPress Plugins
To bulk-update WP plugins simultaneously from your admin area, go to the “Plugins” area 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 its box …
In the Bulk Actions drop down menu at the top of the page, choose Update …
Click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will automatically begin updating …
After all updates are finished, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to your Plugins area, or choose 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) …
You have updated all plugins on your site to their latest version!
(When plugins on your site are up-to-date, notification icons disappear)
Now that you know how to automatically upgrade your plugins, let’s show you how to uninstall plugins from your site.
How To Safely Remove Plugins
At times, you may want to remove plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This can conserve server resources and help to reduce causes of some problems.
In this section, you will learn how to safely uninstall unused plugins from your WordPress 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 restore your site.
To remove a plugin, go to your WP admin menu and choose Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins section, find the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is deactivated.
Hint: Inactive plugins are listed 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 continuing …
Once you have deactivated the plugin, click Delete …
If you want to browse 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 …
The entire list of files associated with the plugin that you are about to delete will display on your screen …
If you are positively certain about going ahead and deleting these plugin files, just click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugin(s) will be deleted from your WordPress installation …
Bulk-Deleting Plugins
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins on your site, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be uninstalled.
Note: To delete any plugins that are currently 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 check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …
Once you have done this, choose Deactivate from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click the Apply button …
The selected plugins will be deactivated …
To delete all or some of the inactive plugins, go to the “Plugins” page and click on the Inactive link on the main menu …
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, select Delete from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click Apply …
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 absolutely sure that you would like to proceed to the next step and delete all of the selected plugins …
The selected plugins will be deleted …
Plugin Management – Tools
In addition to the methods shown above, you can install 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.
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