In another blog post, we provide a detailed explanation of what plugins are about and how you can use plugins to add new features to your site without touching code.
You can read this article here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping all plugins up-to-date, how to automatically upgrade and remove your WordPress plugins, and useful tools to help you better manage your plugins if you plan to run multiple WordPress sites or blogs.
Why Some WordPress Plugins Need Frequent Updating
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, 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 notices for plugins each time a new version of WordPress is announced.
This is because most plugins for WordPress are created by third-party developers, so sometimes code in the newly-released WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were created and tested to work with a previous version. When this happens, conflicts can sometimes occur.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are very proactive when it comes to making sure that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if needed). All you have to do as a WordPress user, is maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is really simple to do.
Keeping your plugins up-to-date and deleting old plugins you no longer need is part of good WordPress management and helps to avoid any potential errors or problems.
The step-by-step tutorial below explains how to upgrade and delete plugins safely in the dashboard without requiring web coding skills.
How To Update And Delete Plugins – Tutorial
WordPress employs a number of different ways to let you know when your plugins need updating.
For example, you can tell immediately how many plugins need to be updated inside your Admin area just by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
In the screenshot below, you can see that 9 WP plugins have older versions that need to be updated …
You can also see how many plugins need updating from your WP Administration Toolbar (in the example below, you can again see that nine plugins need updating) …
The Plugins screen (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you which plugins need updating …
As well as providing information about plugins that have updates available, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin developer pages and gives you the option to update your plugin individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by showing you how to upgrade one WordPress plugin at a time.
How To Upgrade Plugins One At A Time
Always make a backup of your website before updating your website or blog.
From your WP admin menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” page will display in your browser. This screen can be quite lengthy depending on how many plugins you have added to your blog …
(The WordPress Plugins Page)
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 type in a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show on the screen by default), then click Apply …
Your Plugins area will now be reduced in size with a page scrolling feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Search Installed Plugins” function …
WordPress displays plugin information in different color backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (active vs. inactive and outdated vs up-to-date) …
Plugins that need updating have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Insert Plugin Name] available” …
Locate 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 “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat the above process for all plugins on your site that need to be updated, or refer to the section below if you have several plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update them all at once.
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Now that you know how to upgrade individual WP plugins, it’s time to learn how to bulk-update WordPress plugins.
How To Bulk-Update Plugins
To update multiple WordPress plugins at the same time 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 …
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 drop down menu above your plugin list, choose Update …
Click Apply …
Your selected plugins will automatically begin to update …
After your plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to the Plugins screen, or select another option from the main 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 to their latest versions!
(When plugins on your site are up-to-date, update notices do not display)
Now that you know how to update inside your admin dashboard, let’s show you how to safely delete plugins safely from your WordPress site.
How To Delete Plugins
At times, you may want to delete WordPress plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This reduces resource usage and will help you avoid problems.
In this section, you will learn how to delete unused plugins from your site or blog.
Always create 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 remove a plugin, go to your admin menu and select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins section, locate 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, click on Deactivate before continuing with your plugin deletion …
Click on Delete …
If you would like to review a list of all the files that will be deleted before proceeding any further, then click on the “Click to view entire list of files which will be deleted” link in the “Delete Plugin” section …
A complete list of files belonging to the plugin selected for removalwill be listed on your screen …
If you are sure about going ahead and deleting these plugin files, just click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugin(s) will be deleted from your server …
How To Bulk-Delete Plugins
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 checkbox, 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, specify Deactivate from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click the Apply button …
Your selected plugins will be deactivated …
To delete all or some of the inactive plugins, go to the “Plugins” section and click on the Inactive link in the Plugins menu …
Tick the check box in 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 to delete, specify Delete from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click the Apply button …
A list of all selected plugins will display 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 absolutely sure that you would like to proceed to the next step and delete all of the plugins listed …
Your plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Management Tools For Plugins
As well as the methods shown above, you can use a range of tools that let 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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