In another post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use these to easily add new features to your website or blog with no coding knowledge required.
To view this article, go here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping all WordPress plugins up-to-date, how to easily upgrade and remove plugins, and discover some tips to help you better manage your plugins if you need to manage multiple WordPress sites.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Plugins Need Upgrading
The WordPress software is regularly updated (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in older releases, 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 new update notices for WordPress plugins whenever new WordPress versions are 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 created and tested to work with 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 fairly proactive when it comes to making sure that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if required). All you have to do as a website owner, is simply keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is really simple and easy to do.
Keeping your plugins up-to-date and removing old plugins you no longer need is part of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid problems and errors.
The tutorial below explains how to automatically upgrade and delete plugins safely in WordPress without editing web code.
Upgrading And Deleting Plugins Safely In Your WordPress Admin Dashboard – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress uses a number of different methods of letting you know when plugins on your blog need updating.
For example, you can instantly see how many plugins are out-of-date as soon as you log into your WP Dashboard just by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
In the screenshot below, you can see that 9 plugins are out of date and need updating …
You can also check how many plugins need updating from your WordPress Notification Toolbar (as shown below, 9 plugins require updating) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you what plugins need updating …
As well as providing information about which plugins have updates available, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin download sites and gives you the option to update the plugins individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by showing you how to update individual plugins.
How To Update Plugins One At A Time
Always make a complete backup of your website before making any changes to your blog or website.
In your dashboard menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” screen. The table of plugins can be quite lengthy depending on the number of plugins you have installed in your site …
(WordPress Plugins Page)
Notes:
If you have too many plugins 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 type in 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 made more manageable with a pagination feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Plugin Search” feature …
You will see plugin information in different color backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (inactive vs. active and out-of-date vs up-to-date) …
Plugins that need updating have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Insert Plugin Name] available” …
Select 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 process, so that updating your plugins happens with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat this process for all plugins on your site that need to be updated, or see the section below if you have a number of plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update all plugins at the same time.
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Now that you know how to update individual WP plugins, it’s time to learn how to upgrade many WordPress plugins simultaneously.
Bulk-Updating WP Plugins
To update multiple WordPress plugins in one go from your admin area, go to the “Plugins” section 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 only the plugins you want to upgrade by checking their individual boxes …
In the Bulk Actions dropdown menu above your plugin list, select Update …
Click Apply …
Your selected plugins will begin to update automatically …
Once the update process has been completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to your Plugins section, or select another option from the main menu …
Once your plugins are all 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 on your screen, toolbar and menus) …
All plugins have now been upgraded to their latest versions!
(When your site or blog uses the latest version of all plugins, the notification icons no longer display)
Now that you know how to automatically upgrade WordPress plugins, let’s take a look at how to remove plugins safely from your blog or website.
How To Safely Remove WordPress Plugins
At times, you may choose to delete plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This helps to decrease resources on your server and also helps to eliminate potential problems.
In this section, you will learn how to uninstall unused plugins from your site.
Always create 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 remove a plugin, go to your admin menu and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins screen, find the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is inactive.
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, then click on Deactivate before proceeding with your plugin deletion …
Once you have deactivated the plugin, click Delete …
If you want to browse 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” section …
The entire list of files belonging to the plugin selected for deletionwill display on your screen …
If you are positively certain that you want to proceed and delete the selected plugin, just click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugin(s) will be deleted …
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 uninstalled.
Note: To delete any plugins that are currently 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) …
Once you have done this, choose Deactivate from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click the Apply button …
The selected plugins will be deactivated …
To delete all or some of the inactive plugins, go to the “Plugins” screen 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 check box, or click on the check box next to the Plugin column header to select and delete all inactive plugins …
Once you have ticked all the check boxes next to the plugins that you want deleted, specify Delete from the Bulk Actions pull-down 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 sure that you would like to proceed to the next step and delete all of the plugins listed …
The selected plugins will be deleted …
WordPress Tools For Managing Plugins
As well as the methods shown above, you can use 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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"This is AMAZING! I had learnt about how to use WordPress previously, but this covers absolutely everything and more!! Incredible value! Thank you!" - Monique, Warrior Forum