In a previous blog post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use these to increase your web site’s functionality.
You can read the article here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping your plugins up-to-date, how to safely update and uninstall plugins, and useful tools to help you better manage your plugins if you plan to manage multiple WordPress sites or blogs.
Why Many WordPress Plugins Need To Be Upgraded
The WordPress software is constantly updated (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in earlier software versions, and to improve existing features.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, you can expect to see at least some new new update notices for WordPress plugins every.
The reason for this, is because most plugins for WordPress are created by external developers, so sometimes the code in the newly-released WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were developed for a previous version. When this happens, there is a potential for conflicts to sometimes develop.
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 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 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 potential problems and errors.
The WordPress step-by-step tutorial below explains how to upgrade and delete plugins inside your dashboard without requiring web coding knowledge.
How To Automatically Update And Delete Plugins Safely In Your WordPress Dashboard – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress has a number of different methods to notify users when plugins need updating.
For example, you can instantly see how many plugins need updating from your Administration panel by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
In the screenshot below, you can see that nine WP plugins have older versions that need updating …
You can also tell how many plugins need to be updated from your WP Toolbar (as shown below, 9 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 plugins that have updates available, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin download pages and gives you the option to update your plugin with one-click …
Let’s start by showing you how to update individual plugins.
Upgrading Single Plugins
Always make a full backup of your data and files before updating your website.
In your main menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” page will display in your browser. The table of plugins can go down your screen for a while, depending on how many plugins you have installed in your site …
(The WordPress Plugins Page)
Useful Tips:
If you have too many plugins and would like to reduce the number of plugins displaying on the page, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins screen and type in a smaller number of items per page (by default, all plugins display on the screen), then click Apply …
Your Plugins page 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 Installed Plugins” field …
You will see plugin information in different color backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (inactive vs. active and outdated vs up-to-date) …
Plugins that require upgrading show the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin] available” …
Find the plugin that needs updating 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 screen …
Repeat this process for all 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 all plugins in bulk.
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Now that you know how to upgrade one WordPress plugin at a time, it’s time to learn how to upgrade many plugins simultaneously.
How To Bulk-Update WordPress Plugins
To update multiple WP plugins in a single operation using the automatic update feature, go to the “Plugins” section 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 update by checking their individual boxes …
In the Bulk Actions drop down menu above your plugin table, choose Update …
Click Apply …
Your selected plugins will automatically begin to update …
Once all updates have completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to your Plugins screen, or choose another option from the dashboard menu …
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” notices no longer display) …
You have updated all plugins on your site to their latest version!
(When your site or blog uses the latest version of all plugins, update alerts disappear)
Now that you know how to automatically upgrade inside the dashboard, it’s time to learn how to safely delete plugins safely from your WordPress site.
How To Delete Plugins
It’s a good idea to uninstall plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This conserves server resources and help to reduce potential problems.
In this section, we show you how to delete unused plugins from your blog or 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 reinstall your site.
To delete a plugin, go to your dashboard menu and choose Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins section, locate the plugin you want to remove 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 …
Click Delete …
If you need to have a look at all the files that will be deleted before proceeding any further, then click on the “Click to view entire list of files which will be deleted” link in the “Delete Plugin” section …
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 would like to proceed and delete the selected plugin, then click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugins and related files will be deleted from your WordPress installation …
Deleting Multiple Plugins At Once
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 presently 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 check box 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 pull-down menu …
Click the Apply button …
All selected plugins will be deactivated …
Once you have deactivated your plugins, click on the Inactive link on the menu at the top of the page …
Click the check box 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, select Delete from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click Apply …
A list of all selected plugins will show up 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 sure that you would like to go ahead and delete all of the selected plugins …
Your plugins will be deleted …
WordPress Plugin Management – WordPress Tools
In addition to the methods shown above, you can use WordPress plugins 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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"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