In a previous article, we explain what plugins are and how you can use plugins to easily increase your blog’s functionality.
You can read this article here:
In this tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping plugins up-to-date, how to automatically update and uninstall plugins from your site, and useful tips to help you better manage your plugins if you plan to run or manage multiple WordPress sites or blogs.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Many Of Your WordPress Plugins Need Upgrading
The WordPress software is constantly updated (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in earlier software versions, 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 updates for plugins each time a new version of WordPress is released.
The reason for this, is because most plugins for WordPress are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes code in the new WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were developed and tested with a previous version. Whenever 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 this is required). All you need to do on your end, is just keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is very quick, simple and easy to do.
Keeping your plugins up-to-date and deleting old plugins you no longer need is an essential aspect of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid any conflicts and errors.
The WordPress tutorial below explains how to automatically upgrade and delete plugins without requiring web coding or programming knowledge or skills.
How To Automatically Upgrade And Delete Plugins – Tutorial
WordPress provides a few ways of letting users know when plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can instantly see how many plugins are out-of-date as soon as you log into your Administration site by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.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 WordPress Toolbar (the example below shows that a number of plugins need updating) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also provides information about plugins that need to be updated …
In addition to providing information about plugins that have available updates, the Plugins page provides links to the plugin developer pages and gives you the option to update the plugin individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by learning how to update individual WordPress plugins.
Upgrading Individual Plugins
Always make a complete backup of your site files and database before making any changes to your website or blog.
From your WP admin menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” screen will display in your browser. This table of plugins can be quite lengthy depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site …
(Plugins Section)
Tips:
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 page and enter a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show on the screen by default, i.e. “999”), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
Your Plugins section will now be made more manageable with a ’numbered pages’ feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Search” box …
You will see information about plugins in different backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (inactive vs. active 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” …
Find the plugin that needs to be updated and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides fast plugin updating, so that updating your plugins takes place “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat this process for any other 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 upgrade them all at once.
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Now that you know how to update one WordPress plugin at a time, let’s show you how to upgrade many plugins simultaneously.
How To Upgrade Various WordPress Plugins
To bulk-update plugins simultaneously using the automatic upgrade feature, go to the “Plugins” section 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 upgrade by checking their individual boxes …
In the Bulk Actions drop-down menu above the list of plugins, select Update …
Click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will begin to update automatically …
Once all plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to your Plugins screen, or select another option from the WordPress dashboard menu …
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 site or blog uses the latest version of all plugins, update icons disappear)
Now that you know how to upgrade plugins, let’s show you how to safely delete plugins safely from your site or blog.
How To Delete WP Plugins
At times, you may decide to remove WP plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This conserves resources on your server and also eliminates potential problems.
In this section, we show you how to delete unused plugins from your blog or site.
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 main menu and click on 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 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 …
Next, click Delete …
If you need to review a list of 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” page …
A complete list of files associated with the plugin selected for deletionwill display on your screen …
If you are positively sure that you want to proceed and delete these plugin files, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugins and related files will be deleted from your WordPress installation …
How To Safely Bulk-Delete WP Plugins
You can delete all inactive plugins at once, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be removed.
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, select Deactivate from the Bulk Actions drop-down menu …
Click the Apply button …
Your 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 check box in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to delete by checking its box …
Once you have selected all of 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 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 sure that you want to go ahead and delete all of the plugins listed …
The plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Plugin Management – Tools
As well as the methods shown above, you can use Free and Premium 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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"I was absolutely amazed at the scope and breadth of these tutorials! The most in-depth training I have ever received on any subject!" - Myke O'Neill, DailyGreenPost.com