In another blog post, we provide a detailed explanation of what WordPress plugins are about and how you can use these to add new features to your website or blog with no software programming skills required.
To read the article, go here:
In this tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping WordPress plugins up-to-date, how to easily upgrade and remove plugins, and discover practical tips to help you better manage your plugins.
Why Many Plugins Need Upgrading
WordPress frequently updates its software (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 use on your site, there will typically be new new update notices for WordPress plugins every.
The reason for this, is because most plugins for WordPress are created by external developers, so sometimes the code in the newly-released WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were developed for a previous version. When this happens, issues can sometimes occur.
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 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 simple, quick and easy to do.
Keeping your plugins up-to-date and removing old plugins you no longer need is part of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid any potential problems and errors.
The tutorial below explains how to update and delete plugins safely in WordPress with no web programming knowledge needed.
How To Upgrade And Delete Plugins Safely – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress provides several methods of letting you know when your plugins need updating.
For example, you can see ‘at a glance’ how many plugins are out-of-date as soon as you log into your Admin area simply by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
In the example below, nine plugins are out of date and need updating …
You can also tell how many plugins need to be updated from your WordPress Admin Toolbar (the example below shows how many plugins should be updated) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also provides information about plugins that need updating …
In addition to providing information about which plugins have updates available, the Plugins page provides links to the plugin download pages and gives you the option to update your plugin with one-click …
Let’s start by showing you how to upgrade WP plugins one at a time.
Upgrading Single Plugins
We strongly recommend making a backup of your data and files before making any changes to your website.
In your admin menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” section will display in your browser. This screen can be quite lengthy depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site …
(Plugins Section)
Notes:
If you have too many plugins installed and would like to reduce the number of plugins showing 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 screen), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
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” feature …
You will see information about plugins in different backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (inactive vs. active and up-to-date vs. out-of-date) …
Plugins that need upgrading have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin] available” …
Find the plugin that needs updating and click on the update now link …
WordPress has done away with the loading screen when updating plugins and streamlined the plugin update process, so that the process of updating your plugins takes place with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat the above process for all plugins on your site that need to be updated, or refer to the section below if you have several plugins that are out-of-date and would like to upgrade all plugins in bulk.
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Now that you know how to update one plugin at a time, the next step is to learn how to bulk-upgrade WordPress plugins.
How To Update Many WP Plugins
To bulk-upgrade plugins using the automatic upgrading feature, go to the “Plugins” area and click on the Update Available 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 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 update all at once …
After your plugins have all been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to the Plugins screen, or go to 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” notices no longer display) …
You have updated all plugins on your site!
(When your site uses the latest version of all plugins, update icons do not display)
Now that you know how to automatically update WP in the dashboard, let’s take a look at how to uninstall plugins safely from your WordPress site or blog.
Deleting Plugins
It’s a good idea to delete plugins that you no longer need. This can help reduce server resources and will help you avoid problems.
In this section, you will learn how to delete unused plugins from your WordPress site or blog.
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 choose Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins section, locate the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is deactivated.
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, click on Deactivate before going any further …
Next, click on Delete …
If you need to browse 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 …
All files belonging to the plugin selected for removalwill display on your screen …
If you are certain that you want to go ahead and delete the plugin files, then click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugins and related files will be deleted …
Bulk-Deleting Plugins
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins on your site, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be uninstalled.
Note: To delete any plugins that are presently 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 check box, 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, specify Deactivate from the Bulk Actions pull-down 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 on the main menu …
Click the check box in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to remove by checking their individual boxes …
Once you have ticked all the check boxes next to the plugins that you want deleted, select 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 want to go ahead and remove all of the selected plugins …
All selected plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Managing WP Plugins – Useful Tools
In addition to the methods shown above, you can install Free and Paid WordPress plugins to 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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