In another post, we provide a detailed explanation of what WP plugins are about and how you can use plugins to add new features or functionality to your website with no software programming skills required.
To read the article, go here:
In this tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date, how to upgrade and remove plugins, and some great tools to help you better manage your plugins if you currently manage multiple WordPress sites or blogs.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Some Plugins Need Updating
WordPress frequently updates its software (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in previous software 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 updates for plugins each time a new version of WordPress is released.
The reason for this, is because most WordPress plugins are created by external developers, so sometimes the code in the new WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were built for a previous version. Whenever this happens, there is a potential for conflicts to sometimes develop.
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 this is required). All you need to do on your end, is just keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is really simple and easy to do.
Keeping your plugins regularly updated and removing old plugins you no longer need is part of good WordPress management and helps to avoid potential errors and conflicts.
The WordPress step-by-step tutorial below explains how to automatically update and delete plugins in your WordPress admin dashboard without touching web code.
How To Update And Delete Plugins From The WordPress Admin Dashboard – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress utilizes a few ways to let you know when your plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can instantly see how many plugins need updating inside your WordPress Dashboard just by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
In the screenshot below, nine plugins are out of date and need to be updated …
You can also see how many plugins need updating from your WordPress Toolbar (in the example below, you can again see that nine plugins should be brought up to date) …
The Plugins page (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also notifies you about plugins that need to be updated …
In addition to 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 with one-click …
Let’s start by showing you how to upgrade individual plugins.
Upgrade Plugins Individually
Always make a full backup of your site files and database before making any updates to your blog or website.
From your main menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” area. The list of plugins can flow down your page for a while, depending on how many plugins you have added to your site …
(Plugins Page)
Notes:
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 page by default), then click Apply …
Your Plugins page will now be reduced in size with a pagination feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Search Installed Plugins” feature …
WordPress displays information about plugins in different color backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (active vs. inactive and up-to-date vs. outdated) …
Plugins that require upgrading have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Insert Plugin Name] available” …
Locate the plugin that needs to be updated and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides smoother plugin updates, so that the process of updating your plugins happens with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat this process for any other 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 upgrade them all at once.
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Now that you know how to upgrade individual plugins, let’s show you how to bulk-update plugins.
Bulk-Upgrading WP Plugins
To bulk-upgrade plugins directly inside your dashboard, go to the “Plugins” area and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Tick the checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to update by checking its box …
In the Bulk Actions drop-down menu at the top of the page, choose Update …
Click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will begin to update automatically …
Once all plugin updates are completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to your Plugins area, or select another option from the dashboard menu …
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” messages no longer display on your screen, toolbar and menus) …
You have updated all plugins on your site!
(When your plugins are up-to-date, update alerts do not display)
Now that you know how to upgrade WordPress plugins, let’s show you how to uninstall plugins safely from your WordPress site.
Deleting Plugins
At times, you may want to delete WordPress plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This helps to decrease resource usage and eliminates problems.
In this section, we show you how to delete unused plugins from your WordPress site.
We strongly recommend creating 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 restore your site.
To delete a plugin, go to your WP admin menu and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins screen, find the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is deactivated.
Hint: Inactive plugins are listed 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, 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 belonging to the plugin selected for removalwill display on your screen …
If you are positively certain that you would like to proceed and delete these plugin, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugins and related files will be deleted …
How To Safely Delete Multiple WP Plugins At Once
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins on your site, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be uninstalled.
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 check box, or selecting the check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …
Next, specify Deactivate from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click Apply …
Your selected plugins will be deactivated …
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 …
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 …
Once you have selected all of the plugins that you want deleted, choose Delete from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click the Apply button …
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 absolutely certain that you would like to go ahead and remove all of the plugins listed …
Your selected 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 install other WordPress plugins to 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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"I have used the tutorials to teach all of my clients and it has probably never been so easy for everyone to learn WordPress ... Now I don't need to buy all these very expensive video courses that often don't deliver what they promise." - Stefan Wendt, Internet Marketing Success Group