In a separate post, we provide an overview of what WP plugins are about and how you can use these to add new features to your web site with no technical skills required.
To read the article, go here:
In this tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping all plugins up-to-date, how to safely upgrade and delete plugins from your site, and discover some plugin management tips if you manage multiple WordPress sites or blogs.
Why Some Of Your Plugins Need Upgrading
New versions of WordPress are regularly released (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in earlier software releases, as well as to improve existing features.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, there will typically be new updates for WordPress plugins every.
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, there is a potential for conflicts to 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 needed). All you have to do as a WordPress user, is simply keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is really simple to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins regularly updated and removing old plugins you no longer use is an essential aspect of good WordPress management and helps to avoid potential errors and conflicts.
The step-by-step tutorial below explains how to update and delete plugins inside the WP dashboard without web coding knowledge or skills necessary.
How To Automatically Update And Delete Plugins Safely In The WordPress Dashboard – Tutorial
WordPress has several methods to notify you when plugins need updating.
For example, you can see how many plugins are out-of-date as soon as you log into your Admin area just by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
In the example below, you can see that nine plugins need updating …
You can also view how many plugins need updating from your WP Notification Toolbar (the example below shows that nine plugins should be updated) …
The Plugins screen (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also lets you know which plugins need updating …
As well as providing information about plugins that have updates available, the Plugins screen provides links to the plugin developer pages and gives you the option to update the plugins instantly …
Let’s start by learning how to upgrade one WP plugin at a time.
Upgrading Individual Plugins
Always make a backup of your data and files before making any changes to your blog or website.
In your main menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” page. This screen can be quite long depending on the number of plugins you have installed on your site …
(Plugins Screen)
Useful Tips:
If you have too many plugins installed and would like to reduce the number of plugins displaying on your page, 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 pagination feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Plugin Search” feature …
WordPress displays plugin information in different color backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (active vs. inactive and outdated vs up-to-date) …
Plugins that need upgrading have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Insert Plugin Name] available” …
Find the plugin that you want to update 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 updating your plugins happens “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat this process for all plugins on your site that need updating, or see the section below if you have several plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update them all in bulk.
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Now that you know how to update plugins one at a time, let’s show you how to bulk-update WP plugins.
How To Upgrade Multiple Plugins Simultaneously
To bulk-update plugins simultaneously 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 …
Tick 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 its box …
In the Bulk Actions drop down menu above the table of plugins, choose Update …
And then click Apply …
Your selected plugins will automatically begin to update …
After your plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to the Plugins area, or visit another section of your dashboard …
Once all plugins are up-to-date, the update reminders 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) …
All plugins have now been updated to their latest versions!
(When your site uses the latest version of all plugins, update notices no longer appear)
Now that you know how to upgrade your in your admin dashboard, let’s show you how to delete plugins from your WordPress blog or website.
Deleting Plugins
As part of good blog management, it’s a good idea to delete inactive plugins. This helps to decrease resource usage and help to eliminate potential problems.
In this section, we show you how to safely uninstall unused plugins from your WordPress 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 delete a plugin, go to your admin menu and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins area, find the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is deactivated.
Hint: Inactive plugins use 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 going any further …
Next, click on Delete …
If you need 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” section …
A complete list of files belonging to the plugin selected for deletionwill display on your screen …
If you are sure about going ahead and deleting these plugin files, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugin(s) will be removed from your server …
How To Safely Bulk-Delete WP Plugins
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be removed.
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 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, select Deactivate from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click the Apply button …
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 …
Select all of the plugins you want to delete by either placing a tick next to their check box, or click on the check box next to the Plugin column header to select and delete all inactive plugins …
Once you have ticked all the check boxes next to the plugins that you want deleted, 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 want to proceed to the next step and delete all of the selected plugins …
The plugins will be deleted …
WordPress Tools For Managing WordPress Plugins
In addition to the methods shown above, you can use WordPress plugins 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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"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