In another article, we provide an overview of what WP plugins are all about and how you can use plugins to enhance your blog’s capabilities.
To view this article, go here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date, how to easily update and delete plugins from your site, and some great tools to help you better manage your plugins if you need to own or manage multiple WordPress sites.
Why Some WordPress Plugins Need To Be Frequently Upgraded
WordPress constantly updates its software (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in older releases, as well as to improve existing features.
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 third-party developers, so sometimes code in the newly-released WordPress version conflict with plugins that were developed and tested with a previous version. Whenever this happens, conflicts can sometimes develop.
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 need to do as a website owner, is just keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is very simple and easy to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins regularly updated and removing old plugins you no longer need is an essential aspect of good WordPress management and helps to avoid conflicts and errors.
The step-by-step tutorial below explains how to upgrade and delete plugins in the WP dashboard without editing web code.
Updating And Deleting WordPress Plugins Safely In Your Dashboard – Tutorial
WordPress has a number of different ways to let users know when plugins on their site need to be updated.
For example, you can instantly see how many plugins are out-of-date as soon as you log into your Administration site by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, nine WordPress plugins are out of date and need updating …
You can also see how many plugins need to be updated from your WP Toolbar (the screenshot below shows how many plugins need updating) …
The Plugins screen (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also notifies you about plugins that need to be updated …
As well as providing information about which plugins have available updates, the Plugins screen provides links to the plugin developer pages and gives you the option to update the plugins with one-click …
Let’s start by showing you how to upgrade WP plugins individually.
Updating Single A Plugin
We strongly recommend performing a backup of your site files and database before updating your blog or website.
In your main menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” area. The page can be quite long depending on the number of plugins you have added to your blog …
(Plugins Screen)
Useful Tips:
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 page and type in a smaller number of items per page (by default, all plugins display on the page), then click Apply …
Your Plugins area 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 “Plugin Search” box …
You will see plugin information in different color backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (inactive vs. active and out-of-date vs up-to-date) …
Plugins that require upgrading show the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin] available” …
Locate 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 takes place with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat this process for all plugins on your site that need to be updated, or refer to the section below if you have several plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update them all in one simple operation.
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Now that you know how to update individual plugins, the next step is to learn how to update many WordPress plugins simultaneously.
How To Upgrade Several Plugins
To upgrade multiple plugins in a single operation 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 …
Tick the check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to upgrade by checking its box …
In the Bulk Actions pull-down menu at the top of the page, choose Update …
Click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will begin to update automatically …
Once all updates have completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to your Plugins section, or go to a different section of your dashboard …
Once all plugins are up-to-date, the update reminders disappear (i.e. the “at-a-glance” indicators and “There is a new version of XYZ plugin available” notices no longer display) …
All plugins are now up-to-date!
(When your plugins are all up-to-date, notification icons do not display)
Now that you know how to upgrade inside your admin dashboard, let’s show you how to safely uninstall plugins from your site.
How To Safely Delete WP Plugins
At times, you may decide to remove WP plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This can conserve server resources and eliminates problems.
In this section, we show you how to delete unused plugins from your WordPress site or blog.
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 restore your site.
To delete a plugin, go to your main menu and select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins area, 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 with your plugin deletion …
Once you have deactivated the plugin, click Delete …
If you would like 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 …
The entire list of files associated with the plugin selected for removalwill display on your screen …
If you are positively sure about going ahead and deleting the plugin, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugins and related files will be removed from your server …
How To Bulk-Delete WP Plugins
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins on your site, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be cleared.
Note: To delete any plugins that are currently 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 checkbox, or selecting the check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …
Once you have done this, choose Deactivate from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click the Apply button …
Your selected plugins will be deactivated …
Once you have deactivated your plugins, click on the Inactive 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 remove by checking their individual boxes …
Once you have selected all 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 show up 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 remove all of the plugins listed …
Your selected plugins will be deleted …
Management Tools For Plugins
As well as the methods shown above, you can use WordPress plugins to manage your plugins.
PLUGIN CENTRAL
Plugin Central helps you manage your plugins by allowing you to install plugins directly, displays the status of plugins in need of update in your WP Admin and lets you update multiple plugins with one click …
For more details about using this plugin, go here:
Managing WordPress Plugins On Multiple Sites
As discussed earlier, when a plugin update gets released, the best practice is to upgrde the plugin right away.
What if you run multiple sites using the same plugin? Typically, you would need to login to your sites one by one and then go through the plugin update process from that site’s own WordPress admin dashboard. With multiple sites, this process can take quite some time!
WordPress Power User Tip: If you own or manage multiple WordPress sites, you can install, upgrade and remove plugins on multiple sites automatically and simultaneously using a number of WordPress management tools.
Below are a few WordPress management tools that are worth knowing about:
Jetpack
The Jetpack plugin is a versatile WordPress plugin that offers users a powerful range of added functionality, allowing self-hosted WordPress site owners to access WordPress.com’s infrastructure and take advantage of things like robust stats, automated social sharing, and so much more.
(The Jetpack Plugin gives you access to range of powerful WordPress features)
One of these features is “Manage”.
Jetpack Manage allows you to manage your self-hosted WordPress sites and WordPress.com sites from one dashboard on WordPress.com.
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 laptop, tablet, or smart device.
For more information about using this plugin, visit this site:
ManageWP.com – WordPress Management Software
(ManageWP is a widely used WordPress management tool for multiple WordPress sites)
ManageWP lets you manage all your WordPress sites from one dashboard, including upgrades, backups, security and more. The application features easy and intuitive one-click upgrades and instant login to your WordPress sites.
To download the plugin, visit this site:
WP Pipeline.com
(WP Pipeline lets you update all of your WordPress sites, plugins and themes from a single location)
WP Pipeline works in a similar way to ManageWP, but you only have to pay once to access the software. It lets you control and organize your entire online WordPress presence and perform multiple upgrades from one central dashboard.
For more information about using the plugin, go here:
Congratulations! Now you know how to upgrade and safely uninstall plugins via the WP dashboard.
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