In another blog post, we provide an overview of what plugins are all about and how you can use these to easily add new features to your website with no software programming skills required.
To read this article, go here:
In this tutorial you will learn why WordPress plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to update and delete plugins, and some tools to help you better manage your plugins if you currently run multiple WordPress sites.
Why Some Of Your WordPress Plugins Need Updating
WordPress frequently updates its software (about every three to four 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, you can expect to see at least some new new update notices for WordPress plugins whenever new WordPress versions are announced.
This is because most WordPress plugins are created by third-party developers, so sometimes code in the newly-released WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were developed and tested with a previous version. When this happens, problems can sometimes occur.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are quite 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 maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is really 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 management and helps to avoid any potential errors and conflicts.
The step-by-step tutorial below explains how to update and delete plugins safely without editing web code.
Upgrading And Deleting Plugins Safely Inside The WordPress Dashboard – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress employs several methods to inform you when plugins need updating.
For example, you can see how many plugins need updating inside your Administration site by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, 9 plugins need to be updated …
You can also tell how many plugins need to be updated from your WP Admin Toolbar (the example below shows how many plugins should be brought up to date) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you what plugins need to be updated …
As well as providing information about which plugins have available updates, the Plugins page provides links to the plugin developer sites and gives you the option to update your plugin individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by showing you how to upgrade individual WordPress plugins.
Updating Plugins One At A Time
Always make a backup of your data and files before updating your website or blog.
From your dashboard menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” page. This page can be quite long depending on the number of plugins you have installed in your site …
(Plugins Page)
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 page and type in a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show on the screen by default, i.e. “999”), then click Apply …
Your Plugins area 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 “Plugin Search” field …
WordPress displays information about plugins in different color backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (inactive vs. active and out-of-date vs up-to-date) …
Plugins in need of upgrading show the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin] available” …
Locate the plugin that needs updating and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides smooth and simple plugin updates, so that updating your plugins happens with just “one click” 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 update them all in one simple operation.
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Now that you know how to upgrade one plugin at a time, let’s show you how to bulk-upgrade plugins.
Bulk-Upgrading Plugins
To upgrade multiple WordPress plugins at the same time using the automatic update feature, go to the “Plugins” section 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 only the plugins you want to upgrade by checking their individual boxes …
In the Bulk Actions drop down menu at the top of the page, choose Update …
Click Apply …
Your selected plugins will begin to update automatically …
After your plugins have all been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to your Plugins section, or visit another section of your dashboard …
Once your plugins are all 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” messages no longer display on your screen, toolbar and menus) …
You have updated all plugins on your site!
(When your plugins are up-to-date, update messages do not display)
Now that you know how to update WordPress plugins, let’s take a look at how to uninstall plugins safely from your WordPress blog or website.
Deleting Plugins
As part of smart WordPress management, it’s a good idea to uninstall inactive plugins. This can help to reduce server resources and help to minimize potential problems.
In this section, we show you how to remove unused plugins from your site.
We strongly recommend creating 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 reinstall your site.
To remove a plugin, go to your main menu and choose Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins page, locate 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 proceeding …
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 …
A complete list of files associated with the plugin selected for removalwill display on your screen …
If you are positively certain that you want to go ahead and delete these plugin, then click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugin(s) will be deleted from your WordPress installation …
How To Safely Delete Multiple Plugins In Bulk
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be cleared.
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 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 Apply …
All selected plugins will be deactivated …
To delete all or some of the inactive plugins on your site, 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 checkbox, 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, specify Delete from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click Apply …
A list of all selected plugins will display 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 remove all of the selected plugins …
Your plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
WordPress Plugin Management – WordPress Tools
In addition to the methods shown above, you can install a range of tools that let 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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"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum