In a previous blog post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use these to enhance your site’s functionality.
To view this article, go here:
In this tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping WordPress plugins up-to-date, how to safely update and remove your WordPress plugins, and discover useful tips to help you better manage your plugins if you run or manage multiple WordPress sites.
Why Many Of Your Plugins Need To Be Frequently Upgraded
The WordPress software is constantly updated (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in earlier software releases, as well as to improve existing features or introduce new functionality to users.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, there will typically be new new update notices for WordPress plugins whenever WordPress distributes an updated version.
The reason for this, is because most plugins for WordPress are created by third-party developers, so sometimes code in the newly-released WordPress version conflict with plugins that were developed for a previous version. Whenever this happens, problems can sometimes occur.
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 updating is required). All you need to do on your end, is simply keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is really quick, 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 site management and helps to avoid any potential errors or conflicts.
The step-by-step tutorial below explains how to automatically update and delete plugins safely inside your WP dashboard without touching web code.
How To Update And Delete Plugins In WordPress – Tutorial
WordPress uses a few methods of letting you know when plugins on your site need to be updated.
For example, you can see how many plugins need to be updated from your Admin area by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
In the example below, you can see that nine WordPress plugins have older versions that need to be updated …
You can also check how many plugins need to be updated from your WordPress Administration Toolbar (the screenshot below shows that several plugins require updating) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you what plugins need updating …
As well as providing information about which plugins have available updates, the Plugins screen provides links to the plugin download sites and gives you the option to update the plugins individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by showing you how to upgrade one WP plugin at a time.
Updating Individual WordPress Plugins
Always make a complete backup of your site files and database before upgrading your website or blog.
From your admin menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” page will display in your browser. The list of plugins can run down your page for some length, depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site …
(WordPress Plugins Page)
Additional Information:
If you have too many plugins and would like to reduce the number of plugins displayed on your page, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins page and enter a smaller number of items per page (by default, all plugins display on the page), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
Your Plugins page 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 “Plugin Search” box …
WordPress displays information about plugins in different backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (active vs. inactive and outdated vs up-to-date) …
Plugins that need updating show the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin Name] available” …
Locate the plugin that needs updating and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides smooth & fast plugin updates, so that updating your plugins takes place with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat this process for all plugins on your site that need to be updated, or see the section below if you have a number of 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 update plugins one at a time, let’s show you how to upgrade many WP plugins simultaneously.
How To Bulk-Upgrade WordPress Plugins
To update multiple plugins in one go using the automatic updating feature, go to the “Plugins” page and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Tick the check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to update by checking its box …
In the Bulk Actions drop down menu above the table of plugins, choose Update …
Click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will begin updating …
Once all plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to your Plugins screen, or visit a different section of your dashboard …
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” messages no longer display on your screen, toolbar and menus) …
You have updated all plugins on your site!
(When your site uses the latest version of all plugins, the notification icons disappear)
Now that you know how to upgrade your plugins, let’s take a look at how to safely delete plugins safely from your WordPress blog or website.
Deleting Plugins
As part of good blog management, it’s a good idea to delete inactive plugins. This conserves resource usage and help you avoid causes of problems.
In this section, you will learn how to safely remove 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 dashboard menu and select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins screen, find the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is inactive.
Hint: Inactive plugins appear in 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 going any further …
Click Delete …
If you would like to review a list of 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” page …
All files belonging to the plugin selected for removalwill be listed on your screen …
If you are absolutely certain about going ahead and deleting these plugin files, then click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugins and related files will be deleted …
Deleting Multiple Plugins In Bulk
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, you must first 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 checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …
Once you have done this, specify Deactivate from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click the Apply button …
All 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 selected all of the plugins that you want deleted, choose Delete from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click the Apply button …
A list of all selected plugins will display in the Delete Plugins screen. 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 plugins listed …
The plugins will be deleted …
Managing WP Plugins – Useful WordPress Tools
As well as the methods shown above, you can install a range of 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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