In a previous blog post, we provide a detailed explanation of what WP plugins are all about and how you can use plugins to extend your web site’s functionality.
You can read this article here:
In this tutorial you will learn why WordPress plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to safely upgrade and uninstall plugins, and discover some great plugin management tools.
Why Your WordPress Plugins Need Regular Upgrading
New WordPress versions are regularly released (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in older software releases, as well as 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 WordPress plugins whenever WordPress distributes a new version.
This is because most WordPress plugins are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes code in the newly-released WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were developed for a previous version. Whenever this happens, conflicts can 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 required). All you need to do on your end, is simply maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is really simple and easy to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins regularly updated and removing old plugins you no longer use is part of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid any potential errors and conflicts.
The tutorial below explains how to automatically upgrade and delete plugins without touching web code.
How To Automatically Upgrade And Delete Plugins Safely – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress utilizes a number of different methods to inform you when plugins need updating.
For example, you can immediately see how many plugins are out-of-date from your Site’s Dashboard just by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, you can see that nine plugins have older versions that need to be updated …
You can also check how many plugins need updating from your WP Administration Toolbar (the example below shows how many plugins should be updated) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also lets you know which plugins need updating …
In addition to providing information about plugins that have available updates, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin download sites and gives you the option to update your plugins with one-click …
Let’s start by showing you how to update one WP plugin at a time.
Update Plugins One At A Time
Always make a complete backup of your data and files before making any changes to your blog or website.
From your admin menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” section. This list of plugins can be quite lengthy depending on the number of plugins you have installed in your site …
(The WordPress Plugins Screen)
Tips:
If you have too many plugins and would like to reduce the number of plugins showing on your screen, 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 page), then click Apply …
Your Plugins section 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 “Search” function …
WordPress displays information about plugins in different backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (inactive vs. active and outdated vs up-to-date) …
Plugins that require updating have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Insert Plugin Name] available” …
Select the plugin that you want to update and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides smooth and fast plugin updates, so that the process of updating your plugins takes place “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat this process for all plugins on your site that need to be updated, or see the section below if you have many plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update all plugins at once.
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Now that you know how to update individual WordPress plugins, it’s time to learn how to upgrade many WP plugins simultaneously.
How To Bulk-Upgrade WordPress Plugins
To bulk-upgrade WordPress plugins from your admin area, go to the “Plugins” screen and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Click on 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 pull-down menu above the plugin table, choose Update …
And then click Apply …
Your selected plugins will begin to update automatically …
After all updates have been completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to the Plugins area, or select another section of your dashboard …
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 on your screen, toolbar and menus) …
You have updated all plugins on your site to their latest version!
(When plugins on your site are all up-to-date, update alerts disappear)
Now that you know how to update in your dashboard, let’s take a look at how to delete plugins safely from your WordPress blog or website.
How To Safely Delete Plugins
As part of smart WordPress management practice, it’s a good idea to remove plugins that you no longer require. This decreases resources on your server and also helps to eliminate problems.
In this section, you will learn how to safely uninstall unused plugins from your WordPress 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 section, locate the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is deactivated.
Hint: Inactive plugins appear in a different background color than active plugins and show an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, click on Deactivate before going any further …
Click on Delete …
If you want to review a list of all the files that will be deleted before going ahead with the next step, then click on the “Click to view entire list of files which will be deleted” link in the “Delete Plugin” section …
The entire list of files associated with the plugin that you are about to remove will be listed on your screen …
If you are absolutely certain about going ahead and deleting the selected plugin files, then click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugin(s) will be deleted …
Bulk-Deleting 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 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 checkbox, 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, specify Deactivate from the Bulk Actions drop-down menu …
Click Apply …
All 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 checkbox in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to delete by checking their individual boxes …
Once you have selected all the plugins that you want to delete, select Delete from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click Apply …
A list of all selected plugins will show up 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 sure that you want to proceed to the next step and delete all of the plugins listed …
The plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
WP Plugin Management – Tools
In addition to the methods shown above, you can use a number of third-party tools 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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