In a separate blog post, we provide a detailed explanation of what WP plugins are all about and how you can use plugins to easily add new features or functionality to your web site without editing code.
You can view the article here:
In this tutorial you will learn why plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to upgrade and remove plugins from your site, and practical plugin management tools if you own or manage multiple WordPress sites or blogs.
Why Some Of Your WordPress Plugins Need Updating
The WordPress software is constantly updated (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in older software versions, as well as to improve existing features.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, you can expect to see at least some new new update notifications for WordPress plugins each time a new version of WordPress is announced.
The reason for this, is because most WordPress plugins are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes code in the newly-released WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were built for a previous version. Whenever this happens, issues 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 needed). All you need to do as a website owner, is keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is very simple 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 errors or problems.
The WordPress step-by-step tutorial below explains how to update and delete plugins in WordPress without touching web code.
Upgrading And Deleting Plugins Safely In WordPress – Tutorial
WordPress employs a few methods to let you know when your plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can tell immediately how many plugins need to be updated from your Admin area just by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
In the screenshot below, nine plugins are out of date and need to be updated …
You can also tell how many plugins need updating from your WordPress Notification Toolbar (as shown below, a number of plugins need to be updated) …
The Plugins screen (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also notifies you about plugins that need updating …
As well as providing information about plugins that have available updates, the Plugins screen provides links to the plugin download pages and gives you the option to update your plugins with one-click …
Let’s start by showing you how to update plugins one at a time.
Updating WordPress Plugins Individually
Always make a complete backup of your site files and database before upgrading your website or blog.
In your main menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” screen will display in your browser. The list of plugins can go down your page for a while, depending on how many plugins you have added to your site …
(Plugins Section)
Additional Info:
If you have too many plugins and would like to reduce the number of plugins displaying on your screen, 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 reduced in size with a pagination feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Plugin Search” field …
You will see information about plugins in different backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (inactive vs. active and out-of-date vs up-to-date) …
Plugins that require updating have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [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 with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat the above process for any other plugins on your site that need updating, or refer to the section below if you have several plugins that are out-of-date and would like to upgrade all plugins at once.
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Now that you know how to update individual plugins, it’s time to learn how to update many plugins simultaneously.
How To Upgrade Multiple Plugins Simultaneously
To upgrade multiple plugins in one go using the automatic updating feature, go to the “Plugins” page and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Click the check box in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to update by checking its box …
In the Bulk Actions pull-down menu above the table of plugins, select Update …
Click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will begin to update automatically …
After your plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to your Plugins section, or select another option from the sidebar menu …
Once your plugins are all up-to-date, any plugin alerts disappear (i.e. the “at-a-glance” indicators and “There is a new version of XYZ plugin available” notices no longer display) …
All plugins have now been updated!
(When your plugins are up-to-date, notification icons disappear)
Now that you know how to update WP in the dashboard, let’s take a look at how to delete plugins from your WordPress site or blog.
How To Delete WP Plugins
As part of smart WordPress management, it’s a good idea to delete inactive plugins. This decreases resource usage and eliminate potential problems.
In this section, we show you how to deactivate and delete unused plugins from your WordPress site or blog.
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 restore your site.
To remove a plugin, go to your WP admin 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 have 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 continuing with your plugin deletion …
Next, click on Delete …
If you want to have a look at 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” section …
A complete list of files associated with the plugin that you are about to remove will display on your screen …
If you are absolutely sure that you would like to proceed and delete the selected plugin files, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugin(s) will be deleted …
Deleting Multiple Plugins Simultaneously
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, you 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 checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …
Next, specify Deactivate from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click Apply …
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 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 to delete, choose Delete from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click the Apply button …
A list of all selected plugins will display in the Delete Plugins screen. 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 remove all of the selected plugins …
The plugins will be deleted …
WordPress Tools For Managing Plugins
In addition to the methods shown above, you can use 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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