In another post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use plugins to extend your website’s capabilities.
To read this article, go here:
In this tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping WordPress plugins up-to-date, how to safely upgrade and uninstall your WordPress plugins, and useful plugin management tools if you plan to run multiple WordPress sites or blogs.
Why Some WordPress Plugins Need Upgrading
New WordPress versions are regularly released (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in previous versions, and to improve existing features or introduce new functionality to users.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, you can expect to see at least some new updates for plugins each time a new WordPress version is released.
This is because most plugins for WordPress are created by external developers, so sometimes code in the newly-released WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were built for a previous version. Whenever this happens, conflicts can sometimes occur.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are quite proactive when it comes to ensuring that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if this is needed). All you have to do as a WordPress user, is maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is very simple to do.
Keeping your plugins up-to-date and removing old plugins you no longer need is part of good WordPress management and helps to avoid any potential conflicts or errors.
The step-by-step tutorial below explains how to automatically update and delete WordPress plugins safely from the dashboard without web coding skills required.
How To Automatically Update And Delete Plugins Inside The WP Dashboard – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress employs a few ways to let users know when plugins need updating.
For example, you can immediately see how many plugins need to be updated inside your WordPress Dashboard just by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
In the example below, 9 plugins have older versions that need to be updated …
You can also tell how many plugins need updating from your WordPress Toolbar (in the screenshot below, you can again see that nine plugins should be updated) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also lets you know which plugins need updating …
As well as providing information about which plugins have available updates, the Plugins page provides links to the plugin download pages and gives you the option to update your plugin individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by showing you how to upgrade WordPress plugins one at a time.
Upgrading Individual WordPress Plugins
We recommend making a full backup of your website before making any changes to your website.
In your WP admin menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” area. The table of plugins can run down your screen for some length, depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site …
(Plugins Page)
Additional Info:
If you have too many plugins and would like to make this section more manageable, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins area and enter a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show on the page by default), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
Your Plugins area will now be reduced in size with a ’numbered pages’ feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Plugin Search” feature …
You will see information about plugins in different color backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (active vs. inactive and up-to-date vs. outdated) …
Plugins in need of upgrading display the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin] available” …
Find 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 “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat this process for all 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 upgrade them all in bulk.
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Now that you know how to upgrade plugins one at a time, let’s show you how to upgrade multiple WordPress plugins simultaneously.
How To Update Several WordPress Plugins Simultaneously
To bulk-upgrade WP plugins 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 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 at the top of the page, choose Update …
And then click Apply …
Your selected plugins will begin updating …
After the update process has been completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to the Plugins screen, or go to another section of your dashboard …
Once all plugins are 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) …
You have updated all plugins on your site to their latest version!
(When plugins on your site are up-to-date, the notification icons no longer appear)
Now that you know how to update inside the dashboard, let’s take a look at how to remove plugins safely from your site.
How To Safely Delete Plugins
Occasionally, you may want to remove plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This reduces server resources and help to eliminate potential problems.
In this section, we show you how to safely remove unused plugins from your site or blog.
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 admin menu and choose Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins section, find the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is inactive.
Hint: Inactive plugins have a different colored background 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 want to have a look at 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” screen …
The entire list of files associated with the plugin that you are about to remove will display on your screen …
If you are positively sure about going ahead and deleting the plugin files, then click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugins and related files will be deleted from your WordPress installation …
How To Bulk-Delete WordPress Plugins
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 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 checkbox, or selecting the check box 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 dropdown menu …
Click Apply …
Your 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 check box in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to remove by checking its box …
Once you have ticked all the checkboxes next to the plugins that you want deleted, select Delete from the Bulk Actions dropdown 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 sure that you want to go ahead and remove all of the plugins listed …
Your plugins will be deleted …
WordPress Tools For Managing Plugins
In addition to the methods shown above, you can use other WordPress plugins that let 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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