In another post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use these to add new features to your site with no software programming knowledge required.
To read the article, go here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping WordPress plugins up-to-date, how to automatically upgrade and delete your WordPress plugins, and discover practical tips to help you better manage your plugins.
Why Many Of Your WordPress Plugins Need Updating
WordPress regularly updates its software (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in older software releases, and to improve existing features or introduce new functionality to WordPress users.
Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, you can expect to see at least some new new update notifications for plugins when new WordPress versions are released.
The reason for this, is because most plugins for WordPress are created by external developers, so sometimes code in the new WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were created and tested to work with a previous version. When this happens, there is a potential for conflicts to sometimes develop.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are fairly 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 have to do as a WordPress user, is simply maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is really simple to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins regularly updated and deleting old plugins you no longer need is part of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid potential problems or errors.
The WordPress step-by-step tutorial below explains how to upgrade and delete WordPress plugins safely without requiring web coding or programming knowledge or skills.
How To Update And Delete Plugins Safely Inside The WP Admin Dashboard – Tutorial
WordPress employs several ways of letting you know when plugins on your blog need to be updated.
For example, you can immediately see how many plugins are out-of-date from your Administration area just by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, 9 WordPress plugins have older versions that need updating …
You can also view how many plugins need updating from your WP Admin Toolbar (in the screenshot below, you can again see that nine plugins need updating) …
The Plugins screen (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also provides information about plugins that need to be updated …
In addition to providing information about which plugins have available updates, the Plugins page provides links to the plugin download pages and gives you the option to update the plugin individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by showing you how to upgrade WP plugins one at a time.
Updating Individual Plugins
Always make a full backup of your data and files before making any changes to your blog or website.
From your WP admin menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” page will display in your browser. The table of plugins can be quite long depending on how many plugins you have added to your site …
(The WordPress Plugins Page)
Useful Tips:
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 screen and enter a smaller number of items per page (by default, all plugins display on the screen), then click Apply …
Your Plugins section 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” box …
WordPress displays plugin information in different backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (inactive vs. active and outdated vs up-to-date) …
Plugins that require updating have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Insert Plugin Name] 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 process, so that updating your plugins takes place “behind the scenes” 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 many plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update all plugins at the same time.
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Now that you know how to update plugins individually, it’s time to learn how to bulk-update WP plugins.
Bulk-Upgrading Plugins
To upgrade multiple WordPress plugins in one go using the automatic upgrade feature, go to the “Plugins” area and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Click the checkbox 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 at the top of the page, select Update …
Click Apply …
Your selected plugins will automatically begin to update …
Once all updates are done, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to your Plugins area, or visit a different section of your dashboard …
Once all plugins are up-to-date, any plugin alerts 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) …
You have updated all plugins on your site!
(When your plugins are all up-to-date, update alerts disappear)
Now that you know how to automatically update your plugins, let’s show you how to safely delete plugins from your WordPress site.
How To Safely Remove WP Plugins
As part of smart blog management, it’s a good idea to remove inactive plugins. This decreases resources on your server and will help you avoid causes of some problems.
In this section, we show you how to delete unused plugins from your site or blog.
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 remove a plugin, go to your dashboard menu and click on 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 show 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 need 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 associated with the plugin that you are about to remove will display on your screen …
If you are absolutely certain about going ahead and deleting the selected plugin files, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugin(s) will be deleted from your WordPress installation …
Bulk-Deleting WP Plugins
You can delete all inactive plugins at once, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be cleared.
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 checkbox 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 drop-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” section and click on the Inactive link on the main menu …
Tick 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 its box …
Once you have ticked all the check boxes next to the plugins that you want to delete, choose Delete from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click the Apply button …
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 sure that you would like to proceed to the next step and delete all of the selected plugins …
The plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
WP Plugin Management – WordPress Tools
In addition to the methods shown above, you can use WordPress plugins that help you 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