In another article, we explain what plugins are and how you can use these to easily add new features to your site without editing code.
To view this article, go here:
In this tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping all WordPress plugins up-to-date, how to safely upgrade and uninstall plugins from your site, and some great plugin management tools if you currently own or manage multiple WordPress sites.
Why Many Of Your Plugins Need To Be Updated
The WordPress software is regularly updated (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in earlier releases, as well as to improve existing features or introduce new ones.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, you can expect to see at least some new new update notifications for plugins when new versions of WordPress are announced.
The reason for this, is because most WordPress plugins are created by third-party developers, so sometimes the code in the newly-released WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were created and tested to work with a previous version. Whenever 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 ensuring that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if needed). All you have to do as a website owner, is maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is really easy to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date and removing old plugins you no longer use is part of good WordPress management and helps to avoid any errors or problems.
The WordPress step-by-step tutorial below explains how to update and delete plugins safely without editing web code.
How To Update And Delete Plugins Safely From Your WordPress Dashboard – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress provides a few methods of letting users know 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For example, you can immediately see how many plugins are out-of-date as soon as you log into your Administration panel by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
In the example below, 9 WP plugins have older versions that need to be updated …
You can also tell how many plugins need updating from your WP Admin Toolbar (in the screenshot below, you can again see that nine plugins should be brought up to date) …
The Plugins screen (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also lets you know which plugins need to be updated …
As well as providing information about which plugins have available updates, the Plugins page provides links to the plugin developer pages and gives you the option to update the plugin with one-click …
Let’s start by learning how to update one WordPress plugin at a time.
How To Update Single Plugins
We recommend performing a complete backup of your data and files before updating your website or blog.
From your WP admin menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” area. This screen can be quite long depending on the number of plugins you have added to your blog …
(Plugins Page)
Notes:
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 area and type in a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show up on the page by default, i.e. “999”), then click Apply …
Your Plugins page 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 Installed Plugins” function …
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 upgrading display the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Insert Plugin Name] available” …
Select the plugin that needs to be updated and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides simple plugin updating, so that updating your plugins happens with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat this process for all 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 upgrade all plugins at the same time.
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Now that you know how to update WordPress plugins individually, it’s time to learn how to update multiple WordPress plugins simultaneously.
How To Update Various Plugins
To upgrade multiple plugins in one go using the automatic upgrading feature, go to the “Plugins” screen and click on the Update Available 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 each plugin you want to update by checking its box …
In the Bulk Actions drop down menu above the table of plugins, choose Update …
And then click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will begin the update process …
After your plugins have all been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to your Plugins area, or visit a different section of your dashboard …
Once all plugins are up-to-date, the update reminders will disappear (i.e. the “at-a-glance” indicators and “There is a new version of XYZ plugin available” notices no longer display) …
You have updated all plugins on your site!
(When your plugins are all up-to-date, update notices disappear)
Now that you know how to update in the dashboard, let’s show you how to remove plugins safely from your blog or website.
Deleting WordPress Plugins
Occasionally, you may want to remove plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This can decrease resource usage and also help to eliminate causes of problems.
In this section, you will learn how to uninstall unused plugins from your WordPress site.
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 reinstall your site.
To delete a plugin, go to your main menu and choose Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins screen, find the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is deactivated.
Hint: Inactive plugins are listed 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 proceeding with your plugin deletion …
Next, click on Delete …
If you want 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” section …
All files associated with the plugin selected for removalwill display on your screen …
If you are positively sure that you want to go ahead and delete the selected plugin files, then click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugins and related files will be removed from your WordPress installation …
Deleting Multiple WordPress Plugins At Once
You can delete all inactive plugins at once, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be cleared.
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, choose Deactivate from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click Apply …
The selected plugins will be deactivated …
To delete all or some of the inactive plugins on your site, go to the “Plugins” page and click on the Inactive link on the main menu …
Select all of the plugins you want to delete by either placing a tick next to their checkbox, or click on the check box next to the Plugin column header to select and delete all inactive plugins …
Once you have selected all of the plugins that you want to delete, choose Delete from the Bulk Actions drop-down menu …
Click the Apply button …
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 absolutely certain that you would like to go ahead and remove all of the selected plugins …
All plugins will be deleted …
Tools For Managing WordPress Plugins
As well as the methods shown above, you can install 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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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now