In another post, we provide a detailed explanation of what WP plugins are about and how you can use these to expand your blog’s functionality.
To view this article, go here:
In this tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping plugins up-to-date, how to easily update and remove plugins, and some plugin management tools if you plan to run multiple WordPress sites or blogs.
Why Some Plugins Need To Be Upgraded
The WordPress software is constantly updated (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in older releases, and to improve existing features or introduce new ones.
Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, there will typically be new new update notifications for WordPress plugins when new WordPress versions are released.
The reason for this, is because most plugins for WordPress are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes code or features in the new WordPress version conflict with plugins that were built for a previous version. When this happens, conflicts can sometimes develop.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are fairly proactive when it comes to making sure that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if required). All you need to do as a website owner, is just maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is very simple, quick and easy to do.
Keeping your plugins regularly updated and removing old plugins you no longer need is an essential aspect of good WordPress management and helps to avoid errors and conflicts.
The step-by-step tutorial below explains how to automatically update and delete plugins safely without requiring web programming knowledge or skills.
How To Automatically Upgrade And Delete Plugins – Tutorial
WordPress uses a number of different ways to inform users when plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can tell immediately how many plugins need updating inside your Admin area just by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
In the example below, you can see that 9 WP plugins are out of date and need updating …
You can also tell how many plugins need to be updated from your WP Notification Toolbar (in the example below, you can see how many plugins should be brought up to date) …
The Plugins page (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also lets you know which plugins need to be updated …
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 your plugin individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by showing you how to upgrade individual WordPress plugins.
Update WordPress Plugins Individually
We strongly recommend making a complete backup of your data and files before updating your website.
In your main menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” screen. The list of plugins can flow down your page for a while, depending on the number of plugins you have installed on your blog …
(The WordPress Plugins Screen)
Tips:
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 page and enter a smaller number of items per page (by default, all plugins display on the page), then click Apply …
Your Plugins area will now be reduced in size with a ’numbered pages’ feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Plugin Search” field …
You will see information about plugins in different color backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (inactive vs. active and out-of-date vs up-to-date) …
Plugins that need upgrading have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin Name] available” …
Locate the plugin that needs updating and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides faster plugin updating, so that updating your plugins takes place “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat the above 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 update them all at the same time.
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Now that you know how to update one plugin at a time, it’s time to learn how to bulk-upgrade WordPress plugins.
How To Bulk-Upgrade WP Plugins
To bulk-upgrade plugins simultaneously directly inside your dashboard, go to the “Plugins” section 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 only the plugins you want to upgrade by checking its box …
In the Bulk Actions dropdown menu at the top of the page, choose Update …
And then click Apply …
Your selected plugins will begin to update automatically …
Once all plugin updates are done, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to the Plugins screen, or select another option from the sidebar menu …
Once your plugins are all 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 or blog uses the latest version of all plugins, update icons disappear)
Now that you know how to automatically upgrade your plugins, it’s time to learn how to remove plugins from your WordPress blog or website.
Deleting Plugins
It’s a good idea to uninstall plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This can help reduce resources on your server and also help to eliminate potential problems.
In this section, you will learn how to safely remove unused plugins from your WordPress blog or site.
We strongly recommend creating 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 reinstall your site.
To remove a plugin, go to your main menu and select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins page, locate the plugin you want to delete 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 continuing with your plugin deletion …
Click Delete …
If you want to browse 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 …
All files belonging to the plugin selected for removalwill display on your screen …
If you are positively certain about going ahead and deleting the plugin, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugins and related files will be removed from your server …
Bulk-Deleting Plugins
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 presently active, your will first need to 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 dropdown menu …
Click the Apply button …
Your selected plugins will be deactivated …
To delete all or some of the inactive plugins on your site, go to the “Plugins” area and click on the Inactive link in the Plugins 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 ticked all the check boxes next to 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 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 certain that you want to proceed to the next step and remove all of the plugins listed …
Your plugins will be deleted …
WordPress Plugin Management – Tools
In addition to the methods shown above, you can use a range of third-party tools that help you 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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