In another article, we explain what plugins are and how you can use plugins to expand your site’s capabilities.
To read the article, go here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping plugins up-to-date, how to upgrade and delete plugins from your site, and discover practical tools to help you better manage your plugins if you currently manage multiple WordPress sites or blogs.
Why Many Plugins Need To Be Frequently Upgraded
WordPress frequently updates its software (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in older software releases, as well as to improve existing features or introduce new functionality to WordPress users.
Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, there will typically be new new update notifications for plugins when WordPress releases an updated version.
The reason for this, is because most WordPress plugins are created by external developers, so sometimes the code in the newly-released WordPress version conflict with plugins that were created and tested to work with a previous version. When this happens, there is a potential for conflicts to sometimes occur.
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 updating is needed). All you have to do on your end, is just keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is very easy and simple to do.
Keeping your plugins regularly updated and deleting old plugins you no longer use is an essential aspect of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid errors or problems.
The tutorial below explains how to automatically upgrade and delete plugins safely without web coding knowledge or skills necessary.
Upgrading And Deleting Plugins – Tutorial
WordPress utilizes several ways to let users know when plugins need updating.
For example, you can see ‘at a glance’ how many plugins need to be updated from your Admin area by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, nine plugins have older versions that need to be updated …
You can also tell how many plugins need to be updated from your WP Toolbar (the screenshot below shows that several plugins need to be updated) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also lets you know which plugins need updating …
As well as providing information about plugins that have available updates, the Plugins screen provides links to the plugin developer sites and gives you the option to update your plugins individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by learning how to update individual WP plugins.
Upgrading Plugins One At A Time
We strongly recommend making a backup of your website before making any updates to your website or blog.
From your WP admin menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” section will display in your browser. This table of plugins can be quite lengthy depending on the number of plugins you have installed on your blog …
(WordPress Plugins Page)
Additional Info:
If you have too many plugins and would like to reduce the number of plugins displayed on your page, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins screen and type in a smaller number of items per page (by default, all plugins display on the screen), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
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 “Search Plugins” box …
You will see plugin information in different backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (inactive vs. active and outdated vs up-to-date) …
Plugins that need updating show the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin] available” …
Select 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 plugin update process, so that updating your plugins takes place “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat this process for any other plugins on your site that need updating, or see the section below if you have a number of plugins that are out-of-date and would like to upgrade all plugins in bulk.
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Now that you know how to upgrade individual plugins, it’s time to learn how to upgrade many plugins simultaneously.
How To Upgrade Several WP Plugins
To upgrade multiple plugins in a single operation using the automatic upgrading feature, 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 in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to upgrade by checking its box …
In the Bulk Actions drop down menu above the list of plugins, choose Update …
And then click Apply …
Your selected plugins will update all at once …
After the update process has completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to your Plugins section, or select another option from the sidebar menu …
Once all plugins are up-to-date, any plugin alerts will 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 all up-to-date, notification icons do not display)
Now that you know how to upgrade your in the WP dashboard, it’s time to learn how to uninstall plugins from your blog or website.
How To Safely Delete Plugins
It’s a good idea to delete plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This conserves resource usage and help to eliminate causes of problems.
In this section, we show you how to remove 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 restore your site.
To remove a plugin, go to your dashboard menu and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins screen, find the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is inactive.
Hint: Inactive plugins appear in 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 going any further …
Click Delete …
If you would like to browse 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” screen …
All files belonging to the plugin that you are about to remove will be listed on your screen …
If you are positively sure that you want to proceed and delete the selected plugin files, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugin(s) will be deleted …
Deleting Several WordPress 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 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 check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …
Once you have done this, select Deactivate from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click Apply …
The 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 …
Click the checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to remove by checking their individual boxes …
Once you have selected all the plugins that you want deleted, select Delete from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click Apply …
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 would like to proceed to the next step and remove all of the selected plugins …
All plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Plugin Management – Tools
In addition to the methods shown above, you can use a range of tools 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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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)