In a previous article, we explain what plugins are and how you can use these to easily enhance your blog’s functionality.
You can view this article 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 useful plugin management tips if you currently manage multiple WordPress sites or blogs.
Why Many Of Your Plugins Need Upgrading
The WordPress software is regularly updated (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in older software releases, and to improve existing features.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, you can expect to see at least some new updates for plugins whenever new WordPress versions are released.
This is because most WordPress plugins are created by third-party developers, so sometimes code or features in the newly-released WordPress version conflict with plugins that were created and tested to work with a previous version. Whenever this happens, there is a potential for issues to sometimes develop.
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 this is needed). All you need to do on your end, is just keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is very easy to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date and deleting old plugins you no longer use is an essential aspect of good WordPress management and helps to avoid any errors and problems.
The tutorial below explains how to automatically upgrade and delete plugins with no coding skills or knowledge required.
How To Automatically Upgrade And Delete Plugins In Your Dashboard – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress employs a number of different ways of letting users know when plugins on their site need to be updated.
For example, you can instantly see how many plugins are out-of-date inside your Admin area just by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, nine WordPress plugins have older versions that need to be updated …
You can also view how many plugins need updating from your WordPress Toolbar (the screenshot below shows that 9 plugins require updating) …
The Plugins page (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you which plugins need updating …
In addition to providing information about which plugins have updates available, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin developer sites and gives you the option to update your plugins with one-click …
Let’s start by learning how to upgrade plugins individually.
How To Upgrade WordPress Plugins Individually
We recommend performing a full backup of your site files and database before making any upgrades to your blog or website.
In your dashboard menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” page will display in your browser. The list of plugins can be quite lengthy depending on the number of plugins you have installed on your blog …
(WordPress Plugins Screen)
Useful Info:
If you have too many plugins 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 screen by default, i.e. “999”), 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 “Plugin Search” box …
You will see plugin information in different color backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (inactive vs. active and outdated vs up-to-date) …
Plugins that need upgrading display the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Insert Plugin Name] available” …
Find the plugin that you want to update 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 area …
Repeat this process for any other plugins on your site that need updating, or see the section below if you have a number of plugins that are out-of-date and would like to upgrade them all at once.
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Now that you know how to upgrade WordPress plugins one at a time, it’s time to learn how to bulk-upgrade WP plugins.
Bulk-Upgrading WP Plugins
To bulk-upgrade plugins simultaneously directly inside your dashboard, go to the “Plugins” page and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Tick the checkbox in 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 at the top of the page, select Update …
Click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will automatically begin to update …
After your plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to the Plugins screen, or go to 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” notices no longer display on your screen, toolbar and menus) …
You have updated all plugins on your site to their latest version!
(When your site or blog uses the latest version of all plugins, update icons disappear)
Now that you know how to upgrade your inside your WP dashboard, it’s time to learn how to uninstall plugins safely from your site.
How To Safely Remove Plugins
It’s a good idea to remove plugins that you no longer require. This reduces resource usage and help to minimize problems.
In this section, we show you how to safely delete unused plugins from your site or blog.
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 restore your site.
To remove a plugin, go to your WP admin menu and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins screen, locate the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is inactive.
Hint: Inactive plugins use 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 …
Next, click on Delete …
If you want 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” screen …
A complete list of files associated with the plugin selected for removalwill be listed on your screen …
If you are absolutely sure that you want to go ahead and delete these plugin files, then click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugins and related files will be removed from your WordPress installation …
How To Bulk-Delete Plugins
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins on your site, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be removed.
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 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 dropdown menu …
Click the Apply button …
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 check box, 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, specify Delete from the Bulk Actions drop-down menu …
Click Apply …
A list of all selected plugins will show up 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 remove all of the selected plugins …
Your plugins will be deleted …
Practical Management Tools For WP Plugins
As well as the methods shown above, you can install a range of 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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