How To Update WordPress Plugins

Learn how to easily update all of your plugins inside your WordPress dashboard…

How To Upgrade And Delete Plugins In The DashboardIn another blog post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use plugins to easily increase your website’s functionality.

You can read the article here:

In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping your plugins up-to-date, how to safely update and remove plugins, and discover some great plugin management tips if you plan to run or manage multiple WordPress sites.

Why Your WordPress Plugins Need To Be Regularly Upgraded

WordPress frequently updates its software (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in earlier software releases, as well as to improve existing features or introduce new functionality to users.

Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, you can expect to see at least some new new update notices for WordPress plugins every.

This is because most WordPress plugins are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes the code in the newly-released WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were developed and tested with a previous version. When this happens, issues can sometimes develop.

Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are quite proactive when it comes to making sure that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if this is required). All you have to do as a website owner, is simply keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is really simple, quick and easy to do.

Important

Keeping your plugins regularly updated and deleting old plugins you no longer need is part of good WordPress management and helps to avoid errors or problems.

The tutorial below explains how to automatically upgrade and delete plugins without editing web code.

How To Update And Delete Plugins Inside The Dashboard – Tutorial

WordPress provides several methods to alert users when plugins need to be updated.

For example, you can tell immediately how many plugins are out-of-date as soon as you log into your Administration panel by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.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 need to be updated …

Upgrading And Deleting Plugins

You can also view how many plugins need to be updated from your WP Notification Toolbar (as shown below, nine plugins should be brought up to date) …

How To Upgrade And Delete Plugins Safely In The WordPress Dashboard

The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also lets you know which plugins need to be updated …

How To Update And Delete Plugins

In addition to providing information about which plugins have updates available, the Plugins page provides links to the plugin download pages and gives you the option to update your plugin with one-click …

How To Automatically Upgrade And Delete Plugins In Your Dashboard

Let’s start by showing you how to upgrade individual plugins.

Upgrade Single Plugins

Warning

Always make a full backup of your site files and database before making any changes to your website or blog.

From your admin menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins

Updating And Deleting Plugins Safely In WordPress

You will be taken to the “Plugins” page. The table of plugins can run down your page for some length, depending on how many plugins you have added to your site …

How To Update And Delete Plugins

(Plugins Page)

Useful Tip

Useful Info:

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 screen and type in a smaller number of items per page (by default, all plugins display on the screen), then click the ‘Apply’ button …

How To Automatically Upgrade And Delete Plugins Safely In The Dashboard

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 “Search” field …

How To Upgrade And Delete Plugins

WordPress displays plugin information in different color backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (inactive vs. active and out-of-date vs up-to-date) …

Updating And Deleting Plugins Safely

Plugins that need upgrading have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin Name] available”

How To Automatically Upgrade And Delete Plugins Safely

Locate the plugin that needs updating and click on the update now link …

How To Automatically Upgrade And Delete Plugins In WordPress

WordPress has done away with the loading screen when updating plugins and streamlined the plugin update process, so that updating your plugins takes place “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins screen …

Upgrading And Deleting Plugins Safely Inside The WordPress Dashboard

Repeat the above process for any other plugins on your site that need updating, or see the section below if you have a number of plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update all plugins in bulk.

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Now that you know how to update individual WordPress plugins, it’s time to learn how to bulk-upgrade plugins.

Bulk-Updating Plugins

To bulk-update plugins from your admin area, go to the “Plugins” area and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …

Updating And Deleting Plugins Safely

Click on 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 …

Upgrading And Deleting WordPress Plugins

In the Bulk Actions drop down menu above your plugin table, choose Update

How To Automatically Update And Delete Plugins Safely

And then click Apply

Upgrading And Deleting Plugins

The plugins you have selected will begin to update automatically …

Upgrading And Deleting Plugins In Your WP Dashboard

After all plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to the Plugins area, or choose a different section of your dashboard …

How To Automatically Update And Delete Plugins Safely

Once all plugins are up-to-date, the plugin notifications 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) …

Upgrading And Deleting WordPress Plugins

All plugins have now been updated!

Updating And Deleting WordPress Plugins In Your WP Dashboard

(When your site uses the latest version of all plugins, the notification icons disappear)

Now that you know how to automatically upgrade your in your dashboard, let’s show you how to remove plugins safely from your blog or website.

How To Remove Plugins

At times, you may choose to delete WP plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This helps to conserve server resources and also eliminates causes of some problems.

In this section, you will learn how to uninstall unused plugins from your site or blog.

Warning

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 delete a plugin, go to your main menu and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins

How To Upgrade And Delete Plugins Safely

In the Plugins section, locate the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is deactivated.

Hint: Inactive plugins use a different background color than active plugins and show an “Activate” link below the plugin name …

Upgrading And Deleting Plugins In The WordPress Admin Dashboard

If the plugin is active, then click on Deactivate before continuing with your plugin deletion …

Updating And Deleting Plugins In WordPress

Click Delete

Upgrading And Deleting Plugins Safely In WordPress

If you need to browse all the files that will be deleted before proceeding, then click on the “Click to view entire list of files which will be deleted” link in the “Delete Plugin” screen …

How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins Safely

All files belonging to the plugin that you are about to remove will display on your screen …

How To Upgrade And Delete Plugins

If you are positively sure that you would like to go ahead and delete the plugin files, just click on the Yes, Delete these files button …

Updating And Deleting Plugins Safely

The selected plugins and related files will be removed from your WordPress installation …

Updating And Deleting Plugins Safely

How To Safely Bulk-Delete Plugins

You can delete all inactive plugins at once, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be uninstalled.

Useful Information

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 check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …

Updating And Deleting Plugins Inside The WordPress Admin Dashboard

Once you have done this, choose Deactivate from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …

How To Upgrade And Delete WordPress Plugins In The Dashboard

Click Apply

How To Update And Delete Plugins

The selected plugins will be deactivated …

Updating And Deleting Plugins

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 …

Upgrading And Deleting Plugins Safely Inside Your Dashboard

Select all of the plugins you want to delete by either placing a tick next to their checkbox, or click on the checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select and delete all inactive plugins …

How To Automatically Update And Delete Plugins In The Dashboard

Once you have ticked all the checkboxes next to the plugins that you want to delete, select Delete from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …

How To Automatically Upgrade And Delete Plugins Safely

Click Apply

How To Upgrade And Delete WordPress Plugins Safely

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 sure that you want to proceed to the next step and remove all of the selected plugins …

How To Automatically Update And Delete Plugins Safely From The WordPress Admin Dashboard

The plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …

Upgrading And Deleting Plugins From Your Dashboard

Managing WordPress Plugins – Tools

As well as the methods shown above, you can use Free and Paid WordPress plugins to manage your plugins.

Health Check & troubleshooting

Health Check & Troubleshooting WordPress plugin
Health Check identifies common problems and helps you troubleshoot plugin and theme conflicts.

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

WPMU DEV's The Hub - Unlimited WordPress Site Management
WPMU DEV’s The Hub – Unlimited WordPress Site Management

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.

WPMU DEV: The Hub - My Sites - Updates menu

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.

WPMU DEV: The Hub - My Sites - Updates menu

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.

The Hub - Update notifications.
This feature can help you save a lot of time updating multiple WordPress sites, especially when WordPress releases a new version of its software.

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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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)