In another blog post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use these to add new features to your web site without editing code.
To read the article, go here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping plugins up-to-date, how to automatically upgrade and uninstall plugins from your site, and discover useful tips to help you better manage your plugins.
Why Your WordPress Plugins Need To Be Frequently Upgraded
New WordPress versions are regularly released (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in earlier 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 WordPress plugins when new WordPress versions are announced.
The reason for this, is because most WordPress plugins are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes the code in the newly-released WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were built for a previous version. Whenever this happens, conflicts can sometimes develop.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are very 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 on your end, is simply keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is very simple, quick and easy to do.
Keeping your plugins up-to-date and removing old plugins you no longer need is an essential aspect of good WordPress management and helps to avoid any potential errors and problems.
The tutorial below explains how to upgrade and delete plugins safely from the WP dashboard without requiring web coding or programming knowledge.
How To Automatically Upgrade And Delete Plugins Safely – Tutorial
WordPress utilizes a few methods to alert you when plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can tell immediately how many plugins are out-of-date as soon as you log into your Admin area simply by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
In the example below, you can see that 9 plugins have older versions that need updating …
You can also check how many plugins need updating from your WP Administration Toolbar (in the screenshot below, you can see how many plugins need updating) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also provides information about plugins that need updating …
In addition to 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 the plugin with one-click …
Let’s start by showing you how to upgrade individual plugins.
Upgrading Single WordPress Plugins
Always make a complete backup of your site files and database before upgrading your website.
In your dashboard menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” area. The table of plugins can be quite long depending on the number of plugins you have installed in your site …
(Plugins Screen)
Additional Information:
If you have too many plugins installed and would like to reduce the number of plugins showing on your 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 Apply …
Your Plugins area 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 “Plugin Search” feature …
You will see plugin information in different backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (active vs. inactive and out-of-date vs up-to-date) …
Plugins that need upgrading display the following 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 plugin updating process, so that updating your plugins happens “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat the above process for any other plugins on your site that need updating, or see the section below if you have many 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 individual WP plugins, the next step is to learn how to bulk-upgrade plugins.
How To Upgrade Various Plugins
To upgrade multiple WP plugins at the same time directly inside your dashboard, go to the “Plugins” area 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 their individual boxes …
In the Bulk Actions drop-down menu above the table of plugins, choose Update …
Click Apply …
Your selected plugins will update all at once …
Once all upgrades are finished, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to the Plugins area, or visit a different section of your dashboard …
Once your plugins are all up-to-date, the plugin notifications will 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 your plugins are up-to-date, update messages do not display)
Now that you know how to update plugins, let’s take a look at how to safely remove plugins safely from your site.
How To Safely Remove WordPress Plugins
Occasionally, you may decide to delete WP plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This helps to reduce resource usage and also help you avoid problems.
In this section, you will learn how to deactivate and delete unused plugins from your blog or 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 restore your site.
To remove a plugin, go to your main menu and select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins area, find the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is deactivated.
Hint: Inactive plugins are listed in a different colored background than active plugins and display an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, then click on Deactivate before proceeding …
Next, click on Delete …
If you need to have a look at 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” screen …
A complete list of files belonging to the plugin selected for removalwill be listed on your screen …
If you are positively sure about going ahead and deleting the selected plugin files, then click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugins and related files will be deleted …
Bulk-Deleting Plugins
You can delete all inactive plugins at once, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be deleted.
Note: To delete any plugins that are presently 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) …
Next, choose Deactivate from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click the Apply button …
Your selected plugins will be deactivated …
To delete all or some of the inactive plugins on your site, go to the “Plugins” screen 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 each plugin you want to remove by checking their individual boxes …
Once you have selected all of the plugins that you want deleted, choose 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 selected plugins …
All plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Management Tools For WP Plugins
As well as the methods shown above, you can install a range of third-party 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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