In a previous article, we explain what plugins are and how you can use plugins to easily increase your blog’s functionality.
You can view the article here:
In this tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping all plugins up-to-date, how to easily upgrade and uninstall plugins, and useful plugin management tools if you need to manage multiple WordPress sites or blogs.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Some Of Your WordPress Plugins Need To Be Regularly Upgraded
WordPress constantly updates its software (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in previous software versions, as well as to improve existing features or introduce new ones.
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 each time a new version of WordPress is announced.
This is because most plugins for WordPress are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes code in the newly-released WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were developed for a previous version. Whenever this happens, problems 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 updating is needed). All you have to do as a website owner, is maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is really quick, simple and easy to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date and deleting old plugins you no longer use is an essential aspect of good WordPress management and helps to avoid potential errors or conflicts.
The tutorial below explains how to automatically upgrade and delete plugins safely without editing web code.
Upgrading And Deleting Plugins – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress has a few ways of letting you know when plugins on your blog need to be updated.
For example, you can instantly see how many plugins are out-of-date as soon as you log into your Admin area by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
In the screenshot below, nine plugins have older versions that need updating …
You can also view how many plugins need updating from your WP Administration Toolbar (the example below shows how many plugins should be brought up to date) …
The Plugins page (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also notifies you about plugins that need updating …
As well as providing information about plugins that have available updates, the Plugins screen provides links to the plugin developer sites and gives you the option to update the plugin individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by showing you how to upgrade individual WordPress plugins.
Upgrade Single A Plugin
Always make a full backup of your data and files before updating your website.
In your WP admin menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” section. This page can be quite long depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site …
(Plugins Screen)
Useful Information:
If you have too many plugins and would like to reduce the number of plugins displaying on your page, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins page and type in a smaller number of items per page (by default, all plugins display on the screen), 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” field …
You will see information about plugins in different backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (active vs. inactive and out-of-date vs up-to-date) …
Plugins that need updating show the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin] available” …
Locate the plugin that you want to update 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 the process of updating your plugins happens “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat the above process for any other plugins on your site that need updating, or refer to the section below if you have a number of plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update them all in bulk.
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Now that you know how to update one plugin at a time, the next step is to learn how to bulk-upgrade plugins.
How To Upgrade Various WordPress Plugins
To bulk-update plugins simultaneously 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 …
Tick the check box 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 drop-down menu above the table of plugins, choose Update …
Click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will begin to update automatically …
After all plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to your Plugins area, or select another section of your dashboard …
Once all plugins are up-to-date, any plugin alerts 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 site or blog uses the latest version of all plugins, update icons disappear)
Now that you know how to automatically upgrade inside the dashboard, let’s show you how to safely delete plugins safely from your site or blog.
Deleting Plugins
It’s a good idea to uninstall inactive plugins. This decreases resource usage and also will help you avoid potential problems.
In this section, we show you how to uninstall 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 reinstall your site.
To remove a plugin, go to your dashboard menu and choose Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins section, find the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is deactivated.
Hint: Inactive plugins appear in a different colored background than active plugins and display an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, then click on Deactivate before proceeding …
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 belonging to the plugin selected for removalwill display on your screen …
If you are certain about going ahead and deleting the plugin, then click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugins and related files will be deleted …
Bulk-Deleting WordPress Plugins
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be deleted.
Note: To delete any plugins that are currently 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, choose 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 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 ticked all the checkboxes next to the plugins that you want to delete, specify Delete from the Bulk Actions drop-down menu …
Click the Apply button …
A list of all selected plugins will display 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 absolutely certain that you would like to go ahead and delete all of the plugins listed …
Your plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
WordPress Management Tools For WP Plugins
In addition to the methods shown above, you can install a range of 3rd-party tools 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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