In a previous post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use these to easily extend your site’s capabilities.
You can view the article here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping WordPress plugins up-to-date, how to easily update and delete plugins, and discover some tools to help you better manage your plugins if you need to manage multiple WordPress sites.
Why Some Of Your WordPress Plugins Need Regular Updating
New WordPress versions are regularly released (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in older releases, and to improve existing features.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, there will typically be new updates for plugins whenever WordPress releases an updated version.
The reason for this, is because most plugins for WordPress are created by external developers, so sometimes the code in the new WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were built for a previous version. When this happens, there is a potential for issues 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 updating is required). All you need to do on your end, is maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is really 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 any potential errors and conflicts.
The tutorial below explains how to update and delete plugins in your WP admin dashboard without requiring web programming knowledge.
How To Automatically Upgrade And Delete Plugins From Your WordPress Admin Dashboard – Tutorial
WordPress uses several methods of letting users know when plugins need updating.
For example, you can see ‘at a glance’ how many plugins are out-of-date as soon as you log into your Admin area just by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
In the example below, you can see that nine plugins need to be updated …
You can also check how many plugins need updating from your WordPress Toolbar (the screenshot below shows how many plugins require updating) …
The Plugins section (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 pages and gives you the option to update the plugin individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by showing you how to upgrade one plugin at a time.
How To Upgrade Individual WordPress Plugins
We strongly recommend performing a backup of your data and files before updating your website.
In your dashboard menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” section will display in your browser. The list of plugins can run down your screen for a while, depending on how many plugins you have added to your site …
(The WordPress Plugins Page)
Tips:
If you have too many plugins and would like to reduce the number of plugins showing on the screen, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins area 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 made more manageable with a ’numbered pages’ feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Search Plugins” feature …
WordPress displays information about plugins in different color backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (inactive vs. active and up-to-date vs. outdated) …
Plugins that require upgrading display the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin Name] available” …
Select the plugin that needs updating and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides streamlined plugin updates, so that updating your plugins takes place “behind the scenes” 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 many plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update all plugins in one simple operation.
***
Now that you know how to update individual plugins, the next step is to learn how to bulk-upgrade WP plugins.
How To Bulk-Update WP Plugins
To update multiple WP plugins in one go 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 …
Click on the check box in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to update by checking their individual boxes …
In the Bulk Actions pull-down menu above the list of plugins, choose Update …
Click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will begin the update process …
After your plugins have all been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to the Plugins section, or go to a different section of your dashboard …
Once your plugins are all up-to-date, any plugin alerts disappear (i.e. the “at-a-glance” indicators and “There is a new version of XYZ plugin available” notices no longer display) …
You have updated all plugins on your site to their latest version!
(When plugins on your site are all up-to-date, notification icons disappear)
Now that you know how to automatically upgrade WordPress plugins, let’s take a look at how to safely uninstall plugins from your site.
Deleting WordPress Plugins
At times, you may want to delete plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This conserves server resources and eliminates potential problems.
In this section, we show you how to uninstall unused plugins from your 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 dashboard menu and choose Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins screen, locate the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is inactive.
Hint: Inactive plugins use 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 going any further …
Next, click Delete …
If you need to have a look at 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” screen …
The entire list of files belonging to the plugin that you are about to remove will be listed on your screen …
If you are positively sure that you want to go ahead and delete the selected plugin files, just click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugin(s) will be removed from your WordPress installation …
Bulk-Deleting WP Plugins
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins on your site, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be removed.
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 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 drop down menu …
Click Apply …
The selected plugins will be deactivated …
To delete all or some of the inactive plugins, go to the “Plugins” area and click on the Inactive link in the Plugins menu …
Tick the checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to delete by checking their individual boxes …
Once you have ticked all the check boxes next to the plugins that you want deleted, choose Delete from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click the Apply button …
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 go ahead and delete all of the selected plugins …
The plugins will be deleted …
WP Plugin Management – WordPress Tools
As well as the methods shown above, you can use WordPress plugins that let you 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.
***
"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum