In a separate post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use plugins to easily add new features to your website with no software programming knowledge required.
To read the article, go here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn why plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to easily upgrade and delete your WordPress plugins, and useful plugin management tools.
Why Many WordPress Plugins Need To Be Upgraded
New WordPress versions are regularly released (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 have installed on your site, you can expect to see at least some new new update notifications for WordPress plugins whenever WordPress releases a new version.
This is because most WordPress plugins are created by external developers, so sometimes the code in the newly-released WordPress version conflict with plugins that were built for a previous version. When this happens, there is a potential for conflicts to sometimes occur.
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 required). All you need to do as a WordPress user, is simply maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is very easy and simple to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date and deleting old plugins you no longer use is an essential aspect of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid any potential errors and problems.
The WordPress tutorial below explains how to automatically upgrade and delete plugins in your WordPress dashboard without web programming knowledge or skills required.
How To Automatically Update And Delete Plugins In WordPress – Tutorial
WordPress utilizes several methods to notify users when plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can see ‘at a glance’ how many plugins are out-of-date as soon as you log into your Administration panel just by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, 9 WP plugins are out of date and need updating …
You can also check how many plugins need to be updated from your WP Admin Toolbar (as shown below, several plugins should be updated) …
The Plugins page (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you how many plugins need to be updated …
As well as providing information about plugins that have updates available, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin download sites and gives you the option to update the plugins individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by learning how to upgrade plugins one at a time.
Updating WordPress Plugins Individually
Always make a complete backup of your data and files before upgrading your website.
From your admin menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” page will display in your browser. The table of plugins can run down your page for some length, depending on the number of plugins you have installed in your site …
(The WordPress Plugins Section)
Notes:
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 area and enter a smaller number of items per page (by default, all plugins display on the page), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
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 Plugins” field …
You will see information about plugins in different color backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (inactive vs. active and outdated vs up-to-date) …
Plugins in need of upgrading display the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin Name] available” …
Select the plugin that you want to update 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 takes place with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat the above process for any other plugins on your site that need updating, or refer to the section below if you have several plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update them all in one simple operation.
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Now that you know how to update plugins individually, the next step is to learn how to bulk-upgrade plugins.
How To Bulk-Update Plugins
To upgrade multiple WordPress plugins in one go from your admin area, go to the “Plugins” screen and click on the Update Available 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 update by checking their individual boxes …
In the Bulk Actions dropdown menu at the top of the page, choose Update …
Click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will begin the update process …
After the update process has completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to the Plugins screen, or select another option from the WP 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” messages no longer display on your screen, toolbar and menus) …
All plugins have now been updated to their latest versions!
(When your plugins are all up-to-date, the notification icons do not display)
Now that you know how to automatically update plugins, let’s show you how to safely remove plugins safely from your WordPress site.
How To Safely Remove Plugins
Occasionally, you may decide to delete WordPress plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This decreases resources on your server and also help to minimize potential problems.
In this section, we show you how to remove unused plugins from your WordPress site.
We strongly recommend creating a full back up of your 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 choose Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins page, find the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is inactive.
Hint: Inactive plugins use 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 proceeding with your plugin deletion …
Click on Delete …
If you would like to browse 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” page …
All files belonging to the plugin selected for deletionwill be listed on your screen …
If you are positively certain that you would like to go ahead and delete these plugin, then click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugin(s) will be removed from your server …
How To Delete Several Plugins In Bulk
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 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 check box, 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 pull-down menu …
Click Apply …
All 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 checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to delete by checking their individual boxes …
Once you have selected all the plugins that you want to delete, choose Delete from the Bulk Actions drop-down menu …
Click the Apply button …
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 …
Practical Management Tools For Plugins
As well as the methods shown above, you can use Free and Premium WordPress plugins that help you 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