In a separate blog post, we provide an overview of what WP plugins are about and how you can use these to easily extend your web site’s capabilities.
To read the article, go here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping plugins up-to-date, how to automatically update and remove plugins from your site, and useful tips to help you better manage your plugins.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Many WordPress Plugins Need Updating
New versions of WordPress are frequently being released (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in previous software releases, and to improve existing features.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, there will typically be new updates for WordPress plugins each time a new WordPress version is announced.
This is because most WordPress plugins are created by third-party developers, so sometimes features in the newly-released WordPress version conflict with plugins that were developed for a previous version. Whenever this happens, there is a potential for problems to sometimes develop.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are very proactive when it comes to ensuring that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if updating is required). All you need to do on your end, is simply maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is really quick, simple 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 potential problems and errors.
The WordPress tutorial below explains how to upgrade and delete plugins safely without touching web code.
Upgrading And Deleting Plugins Safely – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress uses a number of different ways to inform users when plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can immediately see how many plugins need to be updated as soon as you log into your Administration area just by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
In the example below, nine plugins have older versions that need to be updated …
You can also view how many plugins need to be updated from your WordPress Administration Toolbar (in the example below, you can see how many plugins should be brought up to date) …
The Plugins page (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also provides information about plugins that need updating …
As well as providing information about which plugins have available updates, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin developer pages and gives you the option to update your plugins with one-click …
Let’s start by learning how to update one WP plugin at a time.
Upgrading Individual A Plugin
Always make a backup of your site files and database before making any changes to your website or blog.
From your admin menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” page will display in your browser. The table of plugins can run down your page for a while, depending on how many plugins you have installed on your blog …
(Plugins Screen)
Tips:
If you have too many plugins installed and would like to reduce the number of plugins showing on the page, 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 the ‘Apply’ button …
Your Plugins section will now be reduced in size with a page scrolling feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Search Installed Plugins” field …
WordPress displays plugin information in different color backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (active vs. inactive and outdated vs up-to-date) …
Plugins in need of upgrading have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin Name] available” …
Select the plugin that needs to be updated and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides streamlined plugin updates, so that the process of updating your plugins happens “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat this process for all 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 upgrade all plugins at the same time.
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Now that you know how to upgrade individual plugins, the next step is to learn how to update many plugins simultaneously.
How To Bulk-Update WP Plugins
To bulk-update plugins simultaneously using the automatic updating feature, go to the “Plugins” section and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Click on 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, select Update …
Click Apply …
Your selected plugins will automatically begin updating …
After all plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to the Plugins screen, or choose another section of your dashboard …
Once your plugins are all up-to-date, the update reminders disappear (i.e. the “at-a-glance” indicators and “There is a new version of XYZ plugin available” messages no longer display) …
All plugins have now been updated!
(When your plugins are up-to-date, update alerts disappear)
Now that you know how to automatically update inside the admin dashboard, let’s take a look at how to uninstall plugins from your site or blog.
How To Safely Delete Plugins
It’s a good idea to remove plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This decreases resource usage and helps to eliminate potential problems.
In this section, we show you how to delete unused plugins from your site or blog.
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 delete a plugin, go to your WP admin menu and choose Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins area, locate the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is inactive.
Hint: Inactive plugins appear in a different background color than active plugins and display an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, click on Deactivate before proceeding with your plugin deletion …
Next, click Delete …
If you need to browse all the files that will be deleted before proceeding any further, then click on the “Click to view entire list of files which will be deleted” link in the “Delete Plugin” screen …
A complete list of files associated with the plugin selected for deletionwill be listed on your screen …
If you are certain about going ahead and deleting these plugin files, just click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugin(s) will be deleted from your server …
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 cleared.
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 check box, 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 pull-down menu …
Click Apply …
The 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 …
Tick the check box in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to remove by checking their individual boxes …
Once you have ticked all the checkboxes next to the plugins that you want to delete, select Delete from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click Apply …
A list of all selected plugins will be displayed 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 sure that you would like to proceed to the next step and delete all of the plugins listed …
The plugins will be deleted …
Useful Management Tools For Plugins
As well as the methods shown above, you can use a number of 3rd-party tools 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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