Tag: Wordpress Plugins

In another article, we explain what plugins are and how you can use these to add new features to your website or blog without touching code.

You can view this article here:

• Adding New Features And Functionality To Your Blog With Plugins

In this tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date, how to safely update and remove plugins, and discover some tools to help you better manage your plugins if you plan to run multiple WordPress sites or blogs.

Why Some Of Your WordPress Plugins Need To Be Regularly Updated

WordPress constantly updates its software (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in previous versions, as well as to improve existing features.

Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, you can expect to see at least some new updates for plugins when new WordPress versions are announced.

This is because most plugins for WordPress are created by third-party developers, so sometimes the 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 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 this is needed). All you need to do on your end, is simply maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is very easy to do.

Keeping your plugins regularly updated and removing old plugins you no longer need is part of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid any errors and conflicts.

The WordPress tutorial below explains how to automatically upgrade and delete WordPress plugins safely inside your WordPress dashboard without editing web code.

How To Automatically Upgrade And Delete Plugins Inside The Dashboard – Step-By-Step Tutorial

WordPress utilizes a number of different methods to alert you when plugins need updating.

For example, you can instantly see how many plugins are out-of-date from your WP Dashboard simply by looking at the “Plugins” menu.

In the example below, 9 plugins are out of date and need to be updated …

You can also tell how many plugins need updating from your WordPress Admin Toolbar (as shown below, a number of plugins should be updated) …

The Plugins page (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you which plugins need updating …

In addition to providing information about which plugins have available updates, the Plugins screen provides links to the plugin download sites and gives you the option to update your plugins individually or in bulk …

Let’s start by learning how to update WP plugins one at a time.

How To Upgrade Single A Plugin

We strongly recommend making a complete backup of your website before upgrading your blog or website.

In your WP admin menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …

You will be taken to the “Plugins” screen. This list of plugins can be quite lengthy depending on how many plugins you have added to your site …

(Plugins Page)

Additional Info:

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 area and enter a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show up on the page by default), then click Apply …

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 “Search Plugins” feature …

You will see information about plugins in different backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (inactive vs. active and up-to-date vs. outdated) …

Plugins in need of updating display the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Insert Plugin Name] available” …

Select the plugin that needs updating and click on the update now link …

WordPress provides smooth & fast plugin updates, so that the process of updating your plugins happens “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins area …

Repeat the above process for all plugins on your site that need to be updated, or refer to the section below if you have several plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update all plugins in bulk.

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Now that you know how to upgrade WordPress plugins individually, the next step is to learn how to bulk-update plugins.

How To Update Various WordPress Plugins

To bulk-update WP plugins simultaneously 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 the check box next to 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 your plugin table, select Update …

And then click Apply …

The plugins you have selected will automatically begin updating …

Once all plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to the Plugins section, or visit a different section of your dashboard …

Once all plugins are up-to-date, the plugin notifications disappear (i.e. the “at-a-glance” indicators and “There is a new version of XYZ plugin available” messages no longer display) …

All plugins have now been updated!

(When plugins on your site are all up-to-date, update notices disappear)

Now that you know how to automatically update in the admin dashboard, it’s time to learn how to delete plugins from your WordPress blog or website.

Deleting WordPress Plugins

Occasionally, you may decide to remove WordPress plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This helps to conserve resources on your server and also help you avoid potential problems.

In this section, we show you how to uninstall unused plugins from your WordPress 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 delete a plugin, go to your main menu and choose Plugins > Installed Plugins …

In the Plugins area, locate the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is deactivated.

Hint: Inactive plugins are listed in 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 …

Click on Delete …

If you need to review a list of all the files that will be deleted before going ahead with the next step, then click on the “Click to view entire list of files which will be deleted” link in the “Delete Plugin” section …

A complete list of files associated with the plugin that you are about to delete will be listed on your screen …

If you are positively certain that you would like to proceed and delete the selected plugin files, then click on the Yes, Delete these files button …

The selected plugins and related files will be deleted …

Deleting Several WP Plugins Simultaneously

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, 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) …

Once you have done this, choose Deactivate from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …

Click Apply …

Your selected plugins will be deactivated …

To delete all or some of the inactive plugins on your site, go to the “Plugins” page and click on the Inactive link in the Plugins menu …

Click on the checkbox in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to remove by checking its box …

Once you have ticked all the check boxes next to the plugins that you want to delete, choose Delete from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …

Click Apply …

A list of all selected plugins will be displayed 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 certain that you would like to proceed to the next step and remove all of the selected plugins …

The plugins will be deleted …

Managing WordPress Plugins

In addition to the methods shown above, you can install a number of 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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