In a separate article, we explain what plugins are and how you can use these to add new features and functionality to your site with no software programming skills required.
To view this article, go here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn why plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to easily update and remove plugins, and discover some plugin management tools.
Why Many Of Your WordPress Plugins Need Updating
New WordPress versions are regularly released (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in older software versions, as well as to improve existing features or introduce new ones.
Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, there will typically be new updates for WordPress plugins every.
The reason for this, is because most WordPress plugins are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes features in the new WordPress version conflict with plugins that were created and tested to work with a previous version. Whenever this happens, issues can 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 required). All you have to do as a website owner, is simply maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is really simple, quick 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 errors and problems.
The step-by-step tutorial below explains how to automatically upgrade and delete plugins safely in WordPress without coding skills or knowledge necessary.
How To Update And Delete Plugins In Your Dashboard – Tutorial
WordPress provides several methods to let users know when plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can instantly see how many plugins are out-of-date from your WordPress Dashboard just by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, you can see that 9 plugins have older versions that need updating …
You can also view how many plugins need updating from your WordPress Toolbar (in the screenshot below, you can see how many plugins have to be updated) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you how many plugins need updating …
As well as providing information about plugins that have available updates, the Plugins screen provides links to the plugin developer pages and gives you the option to update your plugins individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by learning how to update plugins one at a time.
Upgrade WordPress Plugins One At A Time
We recommend performing a backup of your website before updating your website.
From your admin menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” section. This list of plugins can be quite lengthy depending on how many plugins you have added to your blog …
(The WordPress Plugins Screen)
Notes:
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 type in a smaller number of items per page (by default, all plugins display on the screen), then click Apply …
Your Plugins area will now be reduced in size with a pagination feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Search” feature …
You will see information about plugins in different backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (inactive vs. active and out-of-date vs up-to-date) …
Plugins that require upgrading display 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 provides smoother plugin updates, so that the process of updating your plugins happens with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat this process for any other 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 upgrade them all at the same time.
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Now that you know how to upgrade one WordPress plugin at a time, it’s time to learn how to bulk-upgrade WP plugins.
How To Bulk-Upgrade WP Plugins
To bulk-update plugins directly inside your dashboard, go to the “Plugins” screen and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Click the checkbox in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to upgrade 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 automatically begin to update …
Once all upgrades are finished, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to your Plugins area, or select another 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” messages no longer display on your screen, toolbar and menus) …
You have updated all plugins on your site!
(When your site uses the latest version of all plugins, update messages do not display)
Now that you know how to automatically update your in your dashboard, it’s time to learn how to remove plugins safely from your site or blog.
How To Safely Delete Plugins
As part of good blog management, it’s a good idea to remove plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This decreases resource usage and eliminate potential problems.
In this section, you will learn how to remove unused plugins from your site.
Always create 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 select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins section, locate the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is inactive.
Hint: Inactive plugins appear 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 continuing …
Next, click Delete …
If you want to browse all the files that will be deleted before going ahead, then click on the “Click to view entire list of files which will be deleted” link in the “Delete Plugin” section …
All files associated with the plugin selected for deletionwill display on your screen …
If you are positively certain that you would like to proceed and delete these plugin, just click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugins and related files will be deleted …
Deleting Several Plugins In Bulk
You can delete all inactive plugins at once, 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 checkbox, 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, select Deactivate from the Bulk Actions drop-down 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” 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 remove by checking their individual boxes …
Once you have ticked all the check boxes next to the plugins that you want to delete, select Delete from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click the Apply button …
A list of all selected plugins will be displayed 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 would like to proceed to the next step and delete all of the selected plugins …
Your plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Managing Plugins
As well as the methods shown above, you can use a number of 3rd-party tools 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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"I have used the tutorials to teach all of my clients and it has probably never been so easy for everyone to learn WordPress ... Now I don't need to buy all these very expensive video courses that often don't deliver what they promise." - Stefan Wendt, Internet Marketing Success Group