Tag: Upgrade WordPress Plugins

In a previous blog post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use these to easily increase your site’s capabilities.

To view this article, go here:

• Add New Functionality To Your WordPress Site With Plugins

In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn why plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to upgrade and uninstall plugins, and discover some tips to help you better manage your plugins if you plan to own or manage multiple WordPress sites or blogs.

Why Some Plugins Need To Be Frequently Updated

The WordPress software is constantly updated (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in earlier releases, and to improve existing features or introduce new ones.

Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, there will typically be new updates for plugins every.

The reason for this, is because most WordPress plugins are created by third-party developers, so sometimes the code in the newly-released WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were developed for a previous version. When this happens, there is a potential for problems to sometimes develop.

Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are very proactive when it comes to making sure that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if this is required). All you need to do on your end, is simply maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is really simple and easy to do.

Keeping your WordPress plugins regularly updated and removing old plugins you no longer need is part of good WordPress management and helps to avoid potential errors and problems.

The step-by-step tutorial below explains how to update and delete WordPress plugins safely without editing web code.

Upgrading And Deleting WordPress Plugins In The WP Admin Dashboard – Tutorial

WordPress has a number of different ways to let you know when plugins on your site need to be updated.

For example, you can instantly see how many plugins are out-of-date from your Admin area just by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.

In the example below, 9 WordPress plugins have older versions that need to be updated …

You can also check how many plugins need updating from your WordPress Admin Toolbar (the screenshot below shows that several plugins need to be updated) …

The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you what plugins need to be updated …

In addition to providing information about plugins that have updates available, the Plugins page provides links to the plugin download pages and gives you the option to update your plugins instantly …

Let’s start by learning how to upgrade WordPress plugins individually.

Upgrading Individual WordPress Plugins

Always make a complete backup of your website before updating your blog or website.

From your main menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …

You will be taken to the “Plugins” section. The list of plugins can flow down your page for a while, depending on how many plugins you have added to your blog …

(Plugins Page)

Notes:

If you have too many plugins installed and would like to make this section more manageable, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins area and enter a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show up on the page by default, i.e. “999”), then click the ‘Apply’ button …

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 “Search Plugins” feature …

WordPress displays information about plugins 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 have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin Name] available” …

Select 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 process, so that the process of updating your plugins happens “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins area …

Repeat the above process for any other 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 at once.

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Now that you know how to update plugins individually, the next step is to learn how to bulk-upgrade plugins.

Bulk-Updating Plugins

To upgrade multiple WordPress plugins at the same time 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 …

Click on the check box in 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 dropdown menu above the list of plugins, select Update …

Click Apply …

The plugins you have selected will automatically begin updating …

After your plugins have all been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to your Plugins section, or visit another section of your dashboard …

Once your plugins are all up-to-date, the plugin notifications will 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 your site or blog uses the latest version of all plugins, update messages no longer display)

Now that you know how to upgrade your plugins, let’s take a look at how to delete plugins safely from your blog or website.

How To Safely Delete WP Plugins

It’s a good idea to delete inactive plugins. This can help to decrease resource usage and also will help you avoid potential problems.

In this section, we show you how to delete unused plugins from your site.

Always create 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 reinstall your site.

To delete a plugin, go to your main menu and choose Plugins > Installed Plugins …

In the Plugins screen, locate the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is deactivated.

Hint: Inactive plugins appear in a different background color than active plugins and display an “Activate” link below the plugin name …

If the plugin is active, then click on Deactivate before continuing with your plugin deletion …

Next, click on Delete …

If you want to review a list of 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 that you are about to delete will display on your screen …

If you are absolutely sure that you would like to go ahead and delete these plugin, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …

Your plugins and related files will be deleted …

Bulk-Deleting WP Plugins

You can delete all inactive plugins at once, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be deleted.

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 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 pull-down menu …

Click Apply …

The 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 …

Tick the check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to delete by checking its box …

Once you have ticked all the check boxes next to the plugins that you want deleted, specify Delete from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …

Click Apply …

A list of all selected plugins will be displayed 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 delete all of the plugins listed …

All plugins will be deleted …

Managing WP Plugins

As well as the methods shown above, you can use a number of 3rd-party tools 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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