In another article, we provide a detailed explanation of what WP plugins are all about and how you can use plugins to add new features to your website with no technical knowledge required.
You can read the article here:
In this tutorial you will learn why plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to automatically update and delete your WordPress plugins, and discover some plugin management tools.
Why Many WordPress Plugins Need To Be Frequently Upgraded
New WordPress versions are regularly released (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in previous releases, and to improve existing features.
Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, you can expect to see at least some new new update notices for plugins every.
This is because most WordPress plugins are created by external developers, so sometimes code in the newly-released WordPress version conflict with plugins that were created and tested to work with a previous version. Whenever this happens, there is a potential for issues to sometimes develop.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are fairly 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 on your end, is just maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is very quick, simple and easy to do.
Keeping your plugins regularly updated and deleting old plugins you no longer need is an essential aspect of good WordPress management and helps to avoid any problems or errors.
The WordPress tutorial below explains how to update and delete plugins safely inside the WordPress admin dashboard with no web programming knowledge necessary.
How To Update And Delete Plugins In The Dashboard – Tutorial
WordPress uses a number of different methods of letting you know when your plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can tell immediately how many plugins are out-of-date from your Administration panel by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, 9 WordPress plugins need updating …
You can also view how many plugins need to be updated from your WP Toolbar (as shown below, a number of plugins require updating) …
The Plugins screen (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you how many plugins need updating …
As well as providing information about which plugins have updates available, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin developer sites and gives you the option to update the plugin individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by showing you how to upgrade plugins one at a time.
Upgrading Plugins Individually
We strongly recommend performing a complete backup of your site files and database before upgrading your website.
From your admin menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” page will display in your browser. The table of plugins can run down your page for a while, depending on the number of plugins you have added to your site …
(Plugins Section)
Additional Info:
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 page will now be made more manageable with a page scrolling feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Plugin Search” function …
You will see information about plugins in different color backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (active vs. inactive and up-to-date vs. outdated) …
Plugins in need of upgrading have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin Name] available” …
Select 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 plugin updating process, so that updating your plugins happens with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat the above process for all plugins on your site that need updating, or refer to the section below if you have a number of plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update all plugins in bulk.
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Now that you know how to update one plugin at a time, it’s time to learn how to upgrade a bunch of WordPress plugins simultaneously.
Bulk-Upgrading Plugins
To upgrade multiple WP plugins in a single operation directly inside your dashboard, go to the “Plugins” page and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Click 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 the list of plugins, select Update …
Click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will begin to update automatically …
Once your plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to the Plugins area, or select another option from the admin menu …
Once your plugins are all up-to-date, the plugin notifications 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 site uses the latest version of all plugins, the notification icons disappear)
Now that you know how to upgrade your in your dashboard, it’s time to learn how to delete plugins safely from your WordPress blog or website.
Deleting WP Plugins
Occasionally, you may decide to remove WordPress plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This helps to conserve resource usage and also help you avoid problems.
In this section, you will learn how to safely uninstall 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 dashboard menu and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins page, locate the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is inactive.
Hint: Inactive plugins have a different colored background than active plugins and display an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, then click on Deactivate before continuing …
Click on Delete …
If you would like to have a look at all the files that will be deleted before going ahead, then click on the “Click to view entire list of files which will be deleted” link in the “Delete Plugin” page …
A complete list of files associated with the plugin selected for deletionwill be listed on your screen …
If you are absolutely sure about going ahead and deleting these plugin files, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugin(s) will be deleted from your server …
How To Delete Several WordPress Plugins At Once
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins, 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 check box, or selecting the check box 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 …
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 …
Click on 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 its box …
Once you have ticked all the check boxes next to the plugins that you want deleted, select Delete from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click Apply …
A list of all selected plugins will be displayed in the Delete Plugins screen. 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 want to go ahead and remove all of the plugins listed …
All plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Managing WordPress Plugins – Tools
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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