In a separate blog post, we provide a detailed explanation of what WP plugins are about and how you can use these to easily increase your blog’s capabilities.
To view the article, go here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn why plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to safely upgrade and uninstall plugins, and practical tools to help you better manage your plugins.
Why Some WordPress Plugins Need Upgrading
WordPress constantly updates its software (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in previous releases, and to improve existing features or introduce new ones.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, there will typically be new updates for WordPress plugins every.
This is because most plugins for WordPress are created by external developers, so sometimes code in the newly-released WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were developed and tested with a previous version. When this happens, there is a potential for problems to sometimes develop.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are fairly proactive when it comes to making sure that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if this is needed). All you have to do on your end, is just maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is really easy to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins regularly updated and deleting old plugins you no longer need is an essential aspect of good WordPress management and helps to avoid errors or conflicts.
The step-by-step tutorial below explains how to upgrade and delete plugins safely inside the dashboard without requiring web coding skills.
How To Automatically Update And Delete Plugins Safely – Tutorial
WordPress has several ways to alert users when plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can instantly see how many plugins need updating as soon as you log into your Admin area by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
In the example below, 9 WordPress plugins need to be updated …
You can also view how many plugins need to be updated from your WP Admin Toolbar (in the example below, you can see how many plugins require updating) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also lets you know which plugins need to be updated …
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 plugins individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by showing you how to update individual WordPress plugins.
Upgrade Individual A Plugin
We strongly recommend making a complete backup of your site files and database before upgrading your blog or website.
From your main menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” section. This screen can be quite lengthy depending on the number of plugins you have added to your site …
(The WordPress Plugins Page)
Useful Info:
If you have too many plugins installed and would like to reduce the number of plugins displaying on your 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 (all plugins show on the page by default), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
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 “Plugin Search” box …
WordPress displays plugin information in different color backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (active vs. inactive and out-of-date vs up-to-date) …
Plugins that require upgrading show 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 update process, so that updating your plugins takes place with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat the above process for any other plugins on your site that need to be updated, or refer to the section below if you have a number of plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update all plugins at the same time.
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Now that you know how to upgrade individual WP plugins, the next step is to learn how to bulk-update plugins.
Bulk-Upgrading WP Plugins
To update multiple WordPress 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 …
Tick 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 its box …
In the Bulk Actions drop down menu above the list of plugins, select Update …
Click Apply …
Your selected plugins will begin to update automatically …
After all plugin updates are done, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to your Plugins screen, or choose a different section of your dashboard …
Once your plugins are all up-to-date, any plugin alerts will 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 are now up-to-date!
(When your site uses the latest version of all plugins, notification icons do not display)
Now that you know how to automatically update inside your dashboard, let’s take a look at how to uninstall plugins safely from your blog or website.
How To Delete WP Plugins
It’s a good idea to remove plugins that you no longer plan to use. This can help to decrease server resources and also help to eliminate causes of problems.
In this section, you will learn how to safely remove unused plugins from your site or blog.
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 admin menu and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins page, 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 with your plugin deletion …
Click on Delete …
If you want 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” page …
The entire list of files belonging to the plugin selected for deletionwill be listed on your screen …
If you are positively certain that you want to proceed and delete the plugin, just click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugins and related files will be deleted …
How To Delete Several Plugins Simultaneously
You can delete all inactive plugins at once, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be uninstalled.
Note: To delete any plugins that are presently active, you 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) …
Once you have done this, specify Deactivate from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click the Apply button …
All selected plugins will be deactivated …
To delete all or some of the inactive plugins, go to the “Plugins” section and click on the Inactive link in the Plugins menu …
Tick the check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to remove by checking their individual boxes …
Once you have selected all the plugins that you want to delete, select Delete from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click Apply …
A list of all selected plugins will show up 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 want to proceed to the next step and delete all of the selected plugins …
The plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
WordPress Management Tools For Plugins
In addition to the methods shown above, you can install WordPress plugins 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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