In another post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use these to increase your web site’s capabilities.
To view the article, go here:
In this tutorial you will learn why WordPress plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to easily update and uninstall plugins, and useful tips to help you better manage your plugins if you plan to run multiple WordPress sites or blogs.
Why WordPress Plugins Need Updating
WordPress regularly updates its software (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in earlier software versions, as well as to improve existing features.
Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, there will typically be new new update notifications for plugins every.
The reason for this, is because most plugins for WordPress are created by external developers, so sometimes features in the newly-released WordPress version conflict with plugins that were created and tested to work with a previous version. Whenever this happens, issues 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 have to do as a website owner, is keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is really simple to do.
Keeping your WordPress 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 any potential problems and errors.
The WordPress tutorial below explains how to automatically upgrade and delete plugins safely in WordPress without requiring web programming skills.
Upgrading And Deleting Plugins Safely Inside The Dashboard – Tutorial
WordPress employs several methods to notify you when plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can immediately see how many plugins are out-of-date as soon as you log into your Administration area simply by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
In the screenshot below, you can see that 9 WP plugins need to be updated …
You can also tell how many plugins need updating from your WP Admin Toolbar (in the screenshot below, you can see how many plugins need to be updated) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also notifies you about plugins that need to be updated …
In addition to providing information about plugins that have updates available, the Plugins page provides links to the plugin developer pages and gives you the option to update your plugins instantly …
Let’s start by learning how to upgrade individual WordPress plugins.
How To Update Plugins One At A Time
Always make a full backup of your site files and database before upgrading your website or blog.
From your main menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” page will display in your browser. The list of plugins can be quite long depending on the number of plugins you have added to your blog …
(Plugins Section)
Notes:
If you have too many plugins and would like to reduce the number of plugins showing on the page, 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 the ‘Apply’ button …
Your Plugins section 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” function …
You will see plugin information in different backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (inactive vs. active and up-to-date vs. out-of-date) …
Plugins in need of upgrading display 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 provides smooth and simple plugin updates, so that updating your plugins happens “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat this process for any other plugins on your site that need to be updated, or refer to the section below if you have a number of plugins that are out-of-date and would like to upgrade them all at the same time.
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Now that you know how to update one WordPress plugin at a time, the next step is to learn how to bulk-upgrade WP plugins.
How To Update Various Plugins
To bulk-upgrade WP plugins 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 …
Tick the check box in 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 pull-down menu at the top of the page, select Update …
Click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will automatically begin to update …
Once the update process has completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to the Plugins screen, or choose another option from the WP admin menu …
Once your plugins are all 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 on your screen, toolbar and menus) …
You have updated all plugins on your site to their latest version!
(When your site or blog uses the latest version of all plugins, notification icons no longer show)
Now that you know how to automatically update plugins, let’s show you how to delete plugins from your WordPress blog or website.
Deleting Plugins
As part of good site management practices, it’s a good idea to delete plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This can help to decrease server resources and also eliminate causes of problems.
In this section, we show you how to safely deactivate and delete unused plugins from your WordPress blog or 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 click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins page, find the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is inactive.
Hint: Inactive plugins appear in a different colored background than active plugins and show an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, then click on Deactivate before going any further …
Once you have deactivated the plugin, click Delete …
If you want to review a list of 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” section …
The entire list of files belonging to the plugin that you are about to remove will display on your screen …
If you are absolutely certain about going ahead and deleting the plugin, just click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugin(s) will be removed from your server …
How To Safely Bulk-Delete WordPress Plugins
You can delete all inactive plugins at once, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be uninstalled.
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 checkbox, or selecting the checkbox 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 …
Once you have deactivated these plugins, click on the Inactive link on the menu at the top of the page …
Tick the checkbox in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to delete by checking their individual boxes …
Once you have selected all the plugins that you want deleted, specify Delete from the Bulk Actions drop-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 sure that you would like to proceed to the next step and delete all of the plugins listed …
The plugins will be deleted …
Tools For Managing WordPress Plugins
In addition to the methods shown above, you can install other 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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