In a separate post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use plugins to easily expand your web site’s functionality.
You can view the article here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn why plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to easily upgrade and remove plugins from your site, and practical tips to help you better manage your plugins if you need to run or manage multiple WordPress sites.
Why Many Of Your WordPress Plugins Need Regular Updating
The WordPress software is constantly updated (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in older releases, as well as to improve existing features or introduce new ones.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, you can expect to see at least some new new update notifications for WordPress plugins when WordPress releases an updated version.
The reason for this, is because most WordPress plugins are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes code in the new WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were built for a previous version. When this happens, problems can sometimes occur.
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 as a website owner, is simply maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is really simple, quick and easy to do.
Keeping your WordPress 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 problems or errors.
The tutorial below explains how to update and delete WordPress plugins without requiring coding knowledge.
Updating And Deleting Plugins Safely From The Dashboard – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress utilizes several methods to notify users when plugins need updating.
For example, you can tell immediately how many plugins need updating as soon as you log into your Administration panel by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
In the example below, 9 plugins have older versions that need updating …
You can also check how many plugins need to be updated from your WordPress Toolbar (in the screenshot below, you can see how many plugins should be updated) …
The Plugins page (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also provides information about plugins that need to be updated …
As well as providing information about which plugins have available updates, the Plugins page provides links to the plugin download sites and gives you the option to update the plugin instantly …
Let’s start by showing you how to update one WP plugin at a time.
How To Update Plugins One At A Time
Always make a complete backup of your site files and database before making any changes to your blog or website.
In your admin menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” screen will display in your browser. This screen can be quite long depending on the number of plugins you have installed on your blog …
(Plugins Screen)
Useful Info:
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 screen and enter a smaller number of items per page (by default, all plugins display on the page), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
Your Plugins page 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 …
WordPress displays information about plugins in different backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (inactive vs. active and up-to-date vs. outdated) …
Plugins in need of upgrading display 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 the process of updating your plugins takes place with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat this process for all 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 upgrade them all in bulk.
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Now that you know how to update plugins one at a time, the next step is to learn how to update a bunch of plugins simultaneously.
How To Bulk-Upgrade Plugins
To bulk-upgrade plugins from your admin area, go to the “Plugins” page and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Click on the checkbox 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 dropdown menu at the top of the page, choose Update …
And then click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will begin updating …
Once all plugin updates are completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to your Plugins screen, or choose another option from the sidebar menu …
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” notices no longer display) …
You have updated all plugins on your site to their latest version!
(When your site uses the latest version of all plugins, the notification icons no longer appear)
Now that you know how to upgrade inside your admin dashboard, let’s show you how to safely uninstall plugins from your WordPress blog or website.
Deleting Plugins
Occasionally, you may want to delete WordPress plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This can help conserve resources on your server and also help to eliminate potential problems.
In this section, we show you how to uninstall 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 screen, 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 show an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, then click on Deactivate before proceeding with your plugin deletion …
Next, click on Delete …
If you need to review a list of 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 …
The entire list of files belonging to the plugin selected for removalwill display on your screen …
If you are positively sure about going ahead and deleting the selected plugin files, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugin(s) will be deleted …
How To Bulk-Delete 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, 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 check box, or selecting the checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …
Next, specify Deactivate from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click Apply …
All selected plugins will be deactivated …
To delete all or some of the inactive plugins on your site, go to the “Plugins” page and click on the Inactive link on the main menu …
Click the checkbox in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to delete by checking their individual boxes …
Once you have ticked all the check boxes next to the plugins that you want deleted, select Delete from the Bulk Actions drop-down menu …
Click Apply …
A list of all selected plugins will display 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 go ahead and remove all of the selected plugins …
The plugins will be deleted …
WordPress Management Tools For WordPress Plugins
As well as the methods shown above, you can use a number of 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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