In a separate article, we explain what plugins are and how you can use plugins to easily expand your web site’s capabilities.
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 easily upgrade and delete your WordPress plugins, and discover some tips to help you better manage your plugins if you currently run multiple WordPress sites.
Why Many WordPress Plugins Need To Be Frequently Updated
The WordPress software is constantly updated (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.
Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, there will typically be new updates for WordPress plugins when WordPress distributes an updated version.
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 created and tested to work with a previous version. When this happens, there is a potential for conflicts to 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 needed). All you need to do as a website owner, is simply maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is very easy and simple to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins regularly updated and removing old plugins you no longer need is an essential aspect of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid potential errors and problems.
The WordPress tutorial below explains how to automatically update and delete plugins without requiring web programming knowledge or skills.
How To Automatically Upgrade And Delete Plugins Safely – Tutorial
WordPress uses several methods to notify users when plugins need updating.
For example, you can immediately see how many plugins need updating inside your Admin area simply by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, 9 WordPress plugins are out of date and need updating …
You can also see how many plugins need updating from your WordPress Toolbar (in the screenshot below, you can again see that nine plugins should be updated) …
The Plugins page (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also provides information about plugins that need updating …
As well as providing information about plugins that have available updates, the Plugins page provides links to the plugin download sites and gives you the option to update the plugin instantly …
Let’s start by showing you how to upgrade one plugin at a time.
How To Update Plugins One At A Time
Always make a complete backup of your website before updating your blog or website.
From your admin menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” page. The page can be quite long depending on how many plugins you have added to your site …
(WordPress Plugins Page)
Useful Tips:
If you have too many plugins installed and would like to reduce the number of plugins displaying on your screen, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins page and type in a smaller number of items per page (by default, all plugins display on the page), 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 “Search Installed Plugins” feature …
You will see plugin information in different backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (active vs. inactive and outdated vs up-to-date) …
Plugins in need of updating display the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin Name] available” …
Find the plugin that you want to update and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides smooth and simpler plugin updates, so that the process of updating your plugins takes place “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat the above process for all 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 in bulk.
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Now that you know how to upgrade individual WP plugins, let’s show you how to update several WP plugins simultaneously.
Bulk-Upgrading Plugins
To upgrade multiple plugins in a single operation directly inside your dashboard, go to the “Plugins” screen 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 each plugin you want to update by checking their individual boxes …
In the Bulk Actions dropdown menu above your plugin list, select Update …
Click Apply …
Your selected plugins will begin to update automatically …
After all plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to the Plugins section, or select another option from the WP admin menu …
Once all plugins are 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” messages no longer display) …
All plugins have now been upgraded!
(When your site or blog uses the latest version of all plugins, update alerts disappear)
Now that you know how to automatically update WP inside the WP dashboard, it’s time to learn how to delete plugins from your site.
Deleting Plugins
As part of smart WordPress management practices, it’s a good idea to remove inactive plugins. This reduces resource usage and eliminate causes of some problems.
In this section, we show you how to deactivate and delete unused plugins from your 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 admin menu and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins section, locate the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is inactive.
Hint: Inactive plugins use a different background color than active plugins and show an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, then click on Deactivate before continuing with your plugin deletion …
Click on Delete …
If you want 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 …
The entire list of files belonging to the plugin that you are about to delete will be listed on your screen …
If you are positively certain about going ahead and deleting the plugin, just click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugin(s) will be deleted …
How To Safely Delete Several WP Plugins At Once
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 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) …
Once you have done this, choose Deactivate from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click the Apply button …
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 selected all of 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 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 …
Plugin Management – Useful Tools
In addition to the methods shown above, you can install a number of 3rd-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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