In another blog post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use plugins to easily add new features and functionality to your blog with no coding skills 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 safely upgrade and uninstall your WordPress plugins, and discover practical plugin management tools if you need to own or manage multiple WordPress sites or blogs.
Why Some Plugins Need To Be Updated
WordPress constantly updates its software (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in previous software versions, and to improve existing features or introduce new functionality to WordPress users.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, there will typically be new new update notifications for plugins every.
This is because most plugins for WordPress are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes the code in the newly-released WordPress version conflict with plugins that were developed and tested with a previous version. When this happens, there is a potential for issues 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 this 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 really quick, simple and easy to do.
Keeping your plugins up-to-date and deleting old plugins you no longer need is an essential aspect of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid errors or conflicts.
The tutorial below explains how to upgrade and delete plugins from your WordPress admin dashboard with no web programming skills required.
Updating And Deleting Plugins – Tutorial
WordPress utilizes a number of different ways of letting you know when plugins on your blog need updating.
For example, you can immediately see how many plugins need updating from your Admin area by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, 9 WP plugins have older versions that need to be updated …
You can also tell how many plugins need to be updated from your WordPress Toolbar (in the screenshot below, you can see how many plugins should be brought up to date) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also lets you know which plugins need to be updated …
As well as providing information about which plugins have available updates, the Plugins page provides links to the plugin download sites and gives you the option to update the plugins instantly …
Let’s start by showing you how to upgrade individual WP plugins.
How To Update Individual Plugins
We strongly recommend performing a complete backup of your data and files before updating your website or blog.
From your admin menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” page will display in your browser. This page can be quite long depending on the number of plugins you have installed in 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 page and type in a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show up on the screen by default), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
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 Installed Plugins” box …
WordPress displays plugin information in different color backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (active vs. inactive and out-of-date vs up-to-date) …
Plugins in need of 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 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 screen …
Repeat the above process for any other plugins on your site that need to be updated, or refer to the section below if you have many plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update them all at the same time.
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Now that you know how to upgrade one WP plugin at a time, let’s show you how to upgrade a bunch of plugins simultaneously.
How To Update Various WP Plugins
To upgrade multiple plugins simultaneously directly inside your dashboard, go to the “Plugins” area 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 only the plugins you want to upgrade by checking their individual boxes …
In the Bulk Actions drop down menu above your plugin list, select Update …
And then click Apply …
Your selected plugins will begin the update process …
Once the update process has completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to the Plugins area, or visit a different 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 plugins on your site are up-to-date, notification icons no longer appear)
Now that you know how to automatically update inside your admin dashboard, let’s show you how to uninstall plugins safely from your site or blog.
How To Delete WP Plugins
As part of smart WordPress management, it’s a good idea to delete plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This can help reduce server resources and also help to reduce causes of problems.
In this section, you will learn how to remove unused plugins from your WordPress 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 restore your site.
To delete a plugin, go to your WP admin menu and select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins section, find the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is deactivated.
Hint: Inactive plugins are listed 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 Delete …
If you need to review a list of all the files that will be deleted before going ahead with the next step, 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 that you are about to remove will be listed on your screen …
If you are certain that you would like to proceed and delete the plugin, then click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugin(s) will be removed from your server …
How To Safely Delete Several WP Plugins At Once
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 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 checkbox, or selecting the check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …
Next, specify Deactivate from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click Apply …
All selected plugins will be deactivated …
To delete all or some of the inactive plugins, go to the “Plugins” screen and click on the Inactive link in the Plugins menu …
Click on the checkbox 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, select Delete from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click the Apply button …
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 want to go ahead and delete all of the plugins listed …
All plugins will be deleted …
Practical Management Tools For WordPress Plugins
In addition to the methods shown above, you can install a number of 3rd-party tools to manage your WordPress plugins.
PLUGIN CENTRAL
Plugin Central improves the management of your plugins by allowing you to install plugins directly, displays the status of plugins in need of update on your Admin area and also allows you to update many plugins at once with a single mouse-click …
For more details about this plugin, go here:
Managing WordPress Plugins On Multiple Sites
As discussed earlier, when plugin developers release a new plugin update, the best practice is to update that plugin as soon as possible.
What if you run multiple WordPress sites using the same plugin? One option, is to login to every site and then update the plugin from that site’s own admin dashboard. If you own or manage multiple sites, this process can take quite a while to complete!
WordPress Power User Tip: If you own or manage a number of WordPress sites, you can install, upgrade and delete plugins on multiple sites automatically and simultaneously using a number of WordPress management tools.
Here are a couple of WordPress management tools you may want to check out:
Jetpack
Jetpack is a single plugin for WordPress that provides users with a wide range of added functionality, allowing self-hosted WordPress site users to access WordPress.com’s infrastructure and take advantage of robust stats, automated social sharing, and so much more.
(Jetpack gives you access to range of powerful WordPress features)
One of these features is “Jetpack Manage”.
Jetpack Manage allows you to manage your WordPress sites from a single dashboard.
With Manage, you can upgrade plugins, set plugins to automatically update, and activate or deactivate plugins on a per-site basis or all at once, whether you’re on your computer, tablet, or smart phone.
To learn more about using this plugin, go here:
ManageWP.com
(ManageWP is a widely used WordPress management tool for multiple WordPress sites)
ManageWP helps you manage all of your WordPress sites from one central location, including updates, backups, security and more. This tool features easy and intuitive one-click management and instant login access to all of your sites.
To learn more about using this plugin, visit this site:
WP Pipeline.com
(With WP Pipeline, you can update all of your WordPress sites, plugins and themes from a single WP installation)
WP Pipeline is very similar to ManageWP, but you only have to pay once to access the software. It lets you manage your entire online WordPress presence and perform multiple upgrades from a single location.
Go here to download and use this plugin:
Congratulations! Now you know how to automatically upgrade and safely remove WordPress plugins via the WP admin dashboard.
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"I have used the tutorials to teach all of my clients and it has probably never been so easy for everyone to learn WordPress ... Now I don't need to buy all these very expensive video courses that often don't deliver what they promise." - Stefan Wendt, Internet Marketing Success Group