In another blog post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use these to easily enhance your blog’s functionality.
To view this article, go here:
In this tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping all WordPress plugins up-to-date, how to safely upgrade and remove plugins, and useful tips to help you better manage your plugins.
Why Some Of Your Plugins Need Regular Updating
New WordPress versions are regularly released (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in older releases, and to improve existing features.
Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, there will typically be new new update notices for plugins when WordPress distributes a new version.
The reason for this, is because most plugins for WordPress are created by external developers, so sometimes features in the newly-released WordPress version conflict with plugins that were developed for a previous version. Whenever this happens, there is a potential for conflicts 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 have to do as a website owner, is just keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is really simple and easy to do.
Keeping your plugins up-to-date and removing old plugins you no longer use is an essential aspect of good WordPress management and helps to avoid conflicts or errors.
The step-by-step tutorial below explains how to automatically update and delete WordPress plugins safely without requiring coding knowledge or skills.
Updating And Deleting Plugins Safely Inside The WordPress Dashboard – Tutorial
WordPress employs a few methods to notify users when plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can immediately see how many plugins are out-of-date as soon as you log into your Administration site just by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
In the screenshot below, you can see that nine plugins have older versions that need updating …
You can also check how many plugins need updating from your WP Administration Toolbar (the screenshot below shows that a number of plugins should be brought up to date) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also lets you know which plugins need to be updated …
In addition to providing information about which plugins have updates available, the Plugins page provides links to the plugin developer sites and gives you the option to update the plugin with one-click …
Let’s start by showing you how to upgrade individual WordPress plugins.
Updating Individual Plugins
We recommend making a backup of your data and files before updating your website.
In your admin menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” page. The list of plugins can flow down your screen for some length, depending on how many plugins you have added to your site …
(WordPress Plugins Page)
Useful Information:
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 screen and enter a smaller number of items per page (by default, all plugins display on the screen), then click Apply …
Your Plugins area will now be made more manageable with a page scrolling feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Plugin Search” field …
WordPress displays plugin information in different backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (active vs. inactive and up-to-date vs. out-of-date) …
Plugins that need upgrading show the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin] available” …
Locate the plugin that needs to be updated and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides smooth & simpler plugin updates, so that the process of updating your plugins takes place “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins screen …
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 upgrade them all in bulk.
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Now that you know how to upgrade individual WP plugins, it’s time to learn how to update several plugins simultaneously.
Bulk-Upgrading WordPress Plugins
To upgrade multiple WP plugins at the same time from your admin area, 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 each plugin you want to upgrade by checking their individual boxes …
In the Bulk Actions drop-down menu above the table of plugins, select Update …
And then click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will begin updating …
After your plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to your Plugins screen, or choose another option from the sidebar menu …
Once all plugins are up-to-date, the plugin notifications disappear (i.e. the “at-a-glance” indicators and “There is a new version of XYZ plugin available” messages no longer display) …
All plugins have now been upgraded!
(When plugins on your site are all up-to-date, update notices no longer show)
Now that you know how to update WP in the admin dashboard, let’s show you how to safely remove plugins safely from your site or blog.
How To Delete WP Plugins
At times, you may choose to remove plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This conserves resource usage and also eliminate potential problems.
In this section, you will learn how to safely deactivate and delete unused plugins from your 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 reinstall your site.
To remove a plugin, go to your main menu and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins screen, locate the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is inactive.
Hint: Inactive plugins are listed 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 continuing …
Click on Delete …
If you need to browse all the files that will be deleted before proceeding, 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 be listed on your screen …
If you are absolutely sure that you would like to go ahead and delete the selected plugin files, then click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugin(s) will be removed from your server …
Bulk-Deleting WordPress Plugins
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins on your site, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be deleted.
Note: To delete any plugins that are currently 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 check box, or selecting the check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …
Next, choose Deactivate from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click Apply …
The 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 …
Tick the check box in 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 deleted, specify Delete from the Bulk Actions dropdown 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 certain that you would like to go ahead and remove all of the selected plugins …
All selected plugins will be deleted …
Managing WordPress Plugins
In addition to the methods shown above, you can use WordPress plugins 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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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now