In a separate post, we provide an overview of what WP plugins are about and how you can use these to add new features and functionality to your web site with no software programming skills required.
To read the article, go here:
In this tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping all plugins up-to-date, how to easily update and delete plugins, and some plugin management tools.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Many Of Your Plugins Need Upgrading
New versions of WordPress are regularly released (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in previous software versions, as well as to improve existing features or introduce new functionality to WordPress users.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, there will typically be new updates for plugins every.
The reason for this, is because most WordPress plugins are created by third-party developers, so sometimes code in the newly-released WordPress version conflict with plugins that were developed and tested with a previous version. Whenever this happens, conflicts can sometimes occur.
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 required). All you need to do as a website owner, is just maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is really simple, quick and easy to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date and deleting old plugins you no longer use is part of good WordPress management and helps to avoid conflicts and errors.
The step-by-step tutorial below explains how to automatically upgrade and delete WordPress plugins safely in your dashboard without requiring coding skills.
Upgrading And Deleting Plugins Safely – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress uses a few methods to let you know when plugins on your blog need to be updated.
For example, you can instantly see how many plugins need updating from your Administration area just by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, you can see that 9 plugins are out of date and need updating …
You can also tell how many plugins need to be updated from your WordPress Toolbar (as shown below, a number of plugins should be brought up to date) …
The Plugins page (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you what plugins need to be updated …
In addition to providing information about plugins that have updates available, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin developer sites and gives you the option to update the plugin with one-click …
Let’s start by learning how to update one plugin at a time.
Update Individual WordPress Plugins
We strongly recommend performing a full backup of your website before making any upgrades to your blog or website.
In your WP admin menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” area will display in your browser. The table of plugins can flow down your page for some length, depending on the number of plugins you have added to your site …
(Plugins Page)
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 type in a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show up on the page by default), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
Your Plugins area will now be made more manageable with a pagination feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Search” feature …
WordPress displays plugin information in different color backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (active vs. inactive and up-to-date vs. outdated) …
Plugins that require upgrading display the following 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 has done away with the loading screen when updating plugins and streamlined the plugin updating process, so that updating your plugins happens with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat the above process for any other 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 upgrade them all at once.
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Now that you know how to upgrade one WordPress plugin at a time, it’s time to learn how to upgrade many plugins simultaneously.
How To Bulk-Update WordPress Plugins
To update multiple WP plugins in a single operation directly inside your dashboard, go to the “Plugins” page 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 update by checking its box …
In the Bulk Actions dropdown menu above the table of plugins, choose Update …
Click Apply …
Your selected plugins will automatically begin updating …
After all plugin upgrades are finished, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to your Plugins screen, or choose another option from the dashboard menu …
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” notices no longer display) …
All plugins have now been updated to their latest versions!
(When your site uses the latest version of all plugins, update messages disappear)
Now that you know how to automatically upgrade your in the dashboard, let’s take a look at how to uninstall plugins safely from your WordPress site or blog.
Deleting Plugins
At times, you may want to remove plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This can help decrease resources on your server and also help you avoid problems.
In this section, you will learn how to safely uninstall unused plugins from your blog or 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 reinstall your site.
To remove a plugin, go to your WP admin menu and choose Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins area, find the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is inactive.
Hint: Inactive plugins use a different colored background than active plugins and show an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, then click on Deactivate before proceeding …
Click Delete …
If you want to browse all the files that will be deleted before taking the next step, then click on the “Click to view entire list of files which will be deleted” link in the “Delete Plugin” page …
All files associated with the plugin selected for deletionwill be listed on your screen …
If you are positively certain about going ahead and deleting the selected plugin, just click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugin(s) will be deleted …
How To Safely Delete Several WordPress 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, you 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 checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …
Next, specify Deactivate from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click Apply …
All selected plugins will be deactivated …
Once you have deactivated these plugins, click on the Inactive link on the menu at the top of the page …
Click on the checkbox 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 the plugins that you want deleted, select Delete from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click Apply …
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 absolutely sure that you want to proceed to the next step and remove all of the plugins listed …
All selected plugins will be deleted …
Practical Management Tools For Plugins
As well as the methods shown above, you can use WordPress plugins 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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