In a separate article, we provide a detailed explanation of what plugins are all about and how you can use these to easily expand your blog’s functionality.
To view the article, go here:
In this tutorial you will learn why WordPress plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to upgrade and uninstall your WordPress plugins, and discover useful plugin management tools.
Why Some Of Your WordPress Plugins Need Updating
New WordPress versions are regularly released (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in earlier 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 plugins each time a new WordPress version is released.
This is because most plugins for WordPress are created by third-party developers, so sometimes code or features in the newly-released WordPress version conflict with plugins that were developed for a previous version. Whenever this happens, issues can sometimes develop.
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 needed). All you need to do on your end, is just maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is really quick, simple and easy to do.
Keeping your plugins up-to-date and deleting old plugins you no longer need is an essential aspect of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid conflicts and errors.
The step-by-step tutorial below explains how to upgrade and delete plugins safely from the dashboard without editing web code.
Updating And Deleting WordPress Plugins Safely From Your WP Admin Dashboard – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress provides a few ways to let users know when plugins on their blog need to be updated.
For example, you can see how many plugins are out-of-date inside your WordPress Dashboard by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
In the example below, you can see that nine WordPress plugins are out of date and need updating …
You can also check how many plugins need to be updated from your WordPress Admin Toolbar (as shown below, several plugins need to be updated) …
The Plugins page (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also lets you know which plugins need to be updated …
In addition to providing information about which plugins have available updates, the Plugins screen provides links to the plugin download pages and gives you the option to update your plugins individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by learning how to update one plugin at a time.
How To Update WordPress Plugins One At A Time
We recommend making a backup of your site files and database before updating your blog or website.
In your dashboard menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” section will display in your browser. The list of plugins can run down your page for a while, depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site …
(Plugins Section)
Useful Tips:
If you have too many plugins installed and would like to make this section more manageable, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins page 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 page scrolling feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Search” field …
WordPress displays plugin information in different backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (active vs. inactive and outdated vs up-to-date) …
Plugins that need upgrading have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin] available” …
Select the plugin that you want to update and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides streamlined plugin updates, so that the process of 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 refer to the section below if you have a number of plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update all plugins in bulk.
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Now that you know how to upgrade plugins one at a time, the next step is to learn how to bulk-update plugins.
How To Bulk-Upgrade Plugins
To upgrade multiple plugins in a single operation using the automatic upgrading feature, 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 each plugin you want to upgrade by checking its box …
In the Bulk Actions drop down menu above the list of plugins, select Update …
And then click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will begin updating …
Once your plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to your Plugins section, or select another 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) …
You have updated all plugins on your site!
(When your plugins are up-to-date, update messages do not display)
Now that you know how to upgrade plugins, it’s time to learn how to safely remove plugins safely from your WordPress blog or website.
How To Safely Remove Plugins
At times, you may want to delete plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This can help to conserve resource usage and help to reduce causes of some problems.
In this section, we show you how to safely delete unused plugins from your blog or 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 reinstall your site.
To delete a plugin, go to your dashboard menu and select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins section, find the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is deactivated.
Hint: Inactive plugins use 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 continuing with your plugin deletion …
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 …
A complete list of files belonging to the plugin selected for deletionwill display on your screen …
If you are positively sure about going ahead and deleting these plugin, then click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugins and related files will be deleted …
Deleting Multiple WP Plugins At Once
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be uninstalled.
Note: To delete any plugins that are currently 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, specify Deactivate from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click the Apply button …
The selected plugins will be deactivated …
To delete all or some of the inactive plugins, go to the “Plugins” screen and click on the Inactive link on the main menu …
Click on the check box next to 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 the plugins that you want to delete, specify Delete from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click the Apply button …
A list of all selected plugins will be displayed 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 certain that you would like to proceed to the next step and remove all of the selected plugins …
Your selected plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
WP Plugin Management – WordPress Tools
In addition to the methods shown above, you can use a number of third-party tools 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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"I was absolutely amazed at the scope and breadth of these tutorials! The most in-depth training I have ever received on any subject!" - Myke O'Neill, DailyGreenPost.com