In a separate blog post, we provide a detailed explanation of what plugins are about and how you can use these to extend your site’s functionality.
To view the article, go here:
In this tutorial you will learn why WordPress plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to update and remove plugins, and some great plugin management tips.
Why Many Plugins Need Upgrading
New versions of WordPress are frequently being released (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in previous versions, and to improve existing features.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, you can expect to see at least some new new update notifications for WordPress plugins when new versions of WordPress are released.
This is because most plugins for WordPress are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes code in the new WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were created and tested to work with a previous version. When this happens, there is a potential for problems 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 need to do on your end, is just maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is very quick, simple and easy to do.
Keeping your plugins up-to-date and removing old plugins you no longer use is part of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid any potential errors and conflicts.
The WordPress tutorial below explains how to upgrade and delete plugins safely in your WordPress admin dashboard without requiring web coding skills or knowledge.
How To Automatically Upgrade And Delete Plugins Safely – Tutorial
WordPress uses several methods to let users know when plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can immediately see how many plugins need updating as soon as you log into your Admin area just by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
In the screenshot below, you can see that nine plugins need to be updated …
You can also check how many plugins need to be updated from your WP Admin Toolbar (in the screenshot below, you can again see that 9 plugins require updating) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also lets you know which plugins need to be updated …
In addition to providing information about plugins that have available updates, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin developer pages and gives you the option to update your plugins instantly …
Let’s start by showing you how to update WordPress plugins one at a time.
Updating Plugins One At A Time
We strongly recommend performing a full backup of your data and files before updating your website.
In your WP admin menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” screen will display in your browser. The list of plugins can flow down your screen for a while, depending on the number of plugins you have added to your site …
(Plugins Screen)
Useful Tips:
If you have too many plugins 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 enter a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show on the screen by default), then click Apply …
Your Plugins area 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 “Search Installed Plugins” field …
You will see information about plugins in different color backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (active vs. inactive and up-to-date vs. outdated) …
Plugins that need upgrading show 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 & simpler plugin updates, so that the process of updating your plugins happens with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat this process for all plugins on your site that need to be updated, or refer to the section below if you have a number of plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update all plugins at once.
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Now that you know how to upgrade one plugin at a time, let’s show you how to update a bunch of WordPress plugins simultaneously.
Bulk-Updating Plugins
To bulk-upgrade WP plugins simultaneously from your admin area, go to the “Plugins” screen and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Tick the check box in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to update by checking its box …
In the Bulk Actions pull-down menu at the top of the page, select Update …
Click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will all be updated at once …
Once your plugins have all been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to the Plugins area, or choose another option from the admin menu …
Once all plugins are up-to-date, the update reminders will disappear (i.e. the “at-a-glance” indicators and “There is a new version of XYZ plugin available” notices no longer display) …
All plugins are now up-to-date!
(When your site uses the latest version of all plugins, update messages disappear)
Now that you know how to automatically upgrade your plugins, it’s time to learn how to safely delete plugins from your WordPress site.
Deleting WP Plugins
As part of good site management, it’s a good idea to remove inactive plugins. This helps to conserve resources on your server and eliminate problems.
In this section, we show you how to safely delete unused plugins from your WordPress site.
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 restore your site.
To remove a plugin, go to your dashboard menu and select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins page, locate 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, click on Deactivate before proceeding with your plugin deletion …
Next, click Delete …
If you would like to browse all the files that will be deleted before proceeding any further, then click on the “Click to view entire list of files which will be deleted” link in the “Delete Plugin” page …
A complete list of files associated with the plugin selected for deletionwill be listed on your screen …
If you are certain about going ahead and deleting the selected plugin, then click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugin(s) will be deleted …
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 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 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 pull-down menu …
Click Apply …
Your 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 …
Click on the checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to remove by checking their individual boxes …
Once you have selected all the plugins that you want to delete, select Delete from the Bulk Actions dropdown 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 plugins listed …
All selected plugins will be deleted …
Tools For Managing Plugins
In addition to the methods shown above, you can use WordPress plugins to manage your WordPress plugins.
PLUGIN CENTRAL
Plugin Central helps you manage your plugins with options that let you install plugins directly, displays the status of plugins in need of update in your Admin area and lets you update many plugins at once with a single click …
To learn more about using this plugin, go here:
Managing WordPress Plugins On Multiple Sites
Whenever a plugin update gets released, the best practice is to upgrde that plugin right away.
What if you run multiple WordPress sites using the same plugin? Typically, you would need to login to every site and then update the plugin manually from that site’s own WordPress admin dashboard. With multiple sites, updating the same plugin(s) can take quite a while!
WordPress Power User Tip: If you manage multiple WordPress sites, you can install, update and remove plugins on multiple sites automatically and simultaneously using a number of WordPress management tools.
Below are just a few great WordPress management tools that are worth knowing about:
Jetpack – Plugin For WordPress
The Jetpack plugin is a single plugin for WordPress that provides users with a powerful range of features, allowing self-hosted WordPress site users to access WordPress.com’s infrastructure and take advantage of things like stats reporting, easy social sharing, and so much more.
(Jetpack gives you access to range of powerful WordPress features)
One of these features is “Jetpack Manage”.
Jetpack Manage allows you to manage your self-hosted WordPress sites and WordPress.com sites from a single dashboard.
With Manage, you can upgrade plugins, set plugins to automatically update, and activate or deactivate plugins on a per-site basis or all at once, whether you’re on your computer, tablet, or smart device.
To download this plugin, visit this site:
ManageWP.com
(ManageWP is a leading WordPress management tool for multiple WP sites)
ManageWP helps you easily manage all your sites from one place, including updates, backups, security and more. The tool features easy and intuitive one-click upgrades and instant login access to your sites.
Visit this site to download this plugin:
WP Pipeline
(WP Pipeline lets you update all of your WordPress sites, plugins and themes from one single dashboard)
WP Pipeline works in a similar way to ManageWP, but sells for a one-time license fee instead of monthly payments. It lets you control and organize your entire portfolio of WordPress sites and perform multiple updates from one central location.
To download this plugin, go here:
Congratulations! Now you know how to automatically update and uninstall your plugins in WordPress.
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