In a previous blog post, we provide a detailed explanation of what WP plugins are all about and how you can use plugins to easily add new features or functionality to your website without editing code.
You can read this article here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping all WordPress plugins up-to-date, how to easily update and delete your WordPress plugins, and discover useful tools to help you better manage your plugins.
Why Some Of Your WordPress Plugins Need To Be Regularly Upgraded
New WordPress versions are constantly being released (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in older software versions, and to improve existing features.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, you can expect to see at least some new new update notifications for plugins each time a new version of WordPress is announced.
The reason for this, is because most WordPress plugins are created by external developers, so sometimes code in the new 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 occur.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are very proactive when it comes to ensuring that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if needed). All you need to do on your end, is simply maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is very quick, simple and easy to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date and removing old plugins you no longer need is an essential aspect of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid any potential problems or errors.
The tutorial below explains how to automatically upgrade and delete plugins safely without touching web code.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins Safely – Tutorial
WordPress has several ways of letting users know when plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can tell immediately how many plugins need to be updated as soon as you log into your Administration site just by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, you can see that nine WP plugins need to be updated …
You can also check how many plugins need to be updated from your WP Administration Toolbar (the screenshot below shows how many plugins need to be updated) …
The Plugins screen (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you what plugins need to be updated …
In addition to providing information about plugins that 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 learning how to update plugins one at a time.
How To Update Single WordPress Plugins
Always make a backup of your site files and database before making any updates to your blog or website.
From your dashboard menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” area will display in your browser. The page can be quite lengthy depending on how many plugins you have installed on your blog …
(Plugins Section)
Notes:
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 area and enter a smaller number of items per page (by default, all plugins display on the screen), 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 “Plugin Search” feature …
You will see plugin information in different backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (active vs. inactive and up-to-date vs. outdated) …
Plugins that require updating have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin Name] available” …
Locate the plugin that you want to update and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides streamlined plugin updates, so that the process of 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 refer to the section below if you have several plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update all plugins in one simple operation.
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Now that you know how to update one plugin at a time, the next step is to learn how to bulk-upgrade WordPress plugins.
Bulk-Updating WP Plugins
To bulk-upgrade plugins simultaneously from your admin area, 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 next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to update by checking their individual boxes …
In the Bulk Actions drop down menu above the table of plugins, select Update …
And then click Apply …
Your selected plugins will all be updated at once …
After all updates have been completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to the Plugins section, or select another option from the WP admin 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” messages no longer display on your screen, toolbar and menus) …
All plugins have now been updated!
(When your site uses the latest version of all plugins, the notification icons disappear)
Now that you know how to upgrade your inside your dashboard, let’s take a look at how to delete plugins from your WordPress site.
Deleting WP Plugins
At times, you may choose to remove plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This can help conserve resource usage and also help you avoid potential problems.
In this section, we show you how to safely uninstall unused plugins from your 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 restore your site.
To delete a plugin, go to your WP admin menu and choose 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 proceeding with your plugin deletion …
Click Delete …
If you would like to review a list of 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” page …
All 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 files, then click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugins and related files will be deleted …
How To Bulk-Delete Plugins
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins on your site, 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 checkbox 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 …
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 on the main menu …
Click on the checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to delete by checking its box …
Once you have selected all the plugins that you want to delete, specify Delete from the Bulk Actions drop 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 would like to proceed to the next step and remove all of the plugins listed …
Your plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Managing WP Plugins
In addition to the methods shown above, you can install other WordPress plugins to 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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"This is AMAZING! I had learnt about how to use WordPress previously, but this covers absolutely everything and more!! Incredible value! Thank you!" - Monique, Warrior Forum