In a separate article, we explain what plugins are and how you can use these to easily extend your site’s functionality.
You can read the article here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn why plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to upgrade and remove plugins from your site, and useful tools to help you better manage your plugins.
Why Your Plugins Need Upgrading
The WordPress software is constantly updated (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in earlier software versions, and to improve existing features or introduce new ones.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, there will typically be new new update notifications for plugins each time a new WordPress version is made available.
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 issues 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 this is needed). All you need to do as a website owner, is 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 deleting old plugins you no longer use is part of good WordPress management and helps to avoid conflicts and errors.
The step-by-step tutorial below explains how to automatically upgrade and delete plugins safely from your WordPress dashboard with no web programming skills or knowledge required.
Upgrading And Deleting Plugins – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress utilizes several methods to let users know when plugins on their blog need updating.
For example, you can tell immediately how many plugins need updating from your Admin area simply by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
In the example below, 9 WP plugins are out of date and need updating …
You can also check how many plugins need updating from your WordPress Admin Toolbar (the example below shows that 9 plugins should be brought up to date) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you how many plugins need updating …
As well as providing information about which plugins have updates available, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin download pages and gives you the option to update the plugins individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by learning how to upgrade one WordPress plugin at a time.
Upgrade WordPress Plugins Individually
Always make a full backup of your data and files before making any changes to your blog or website.
In your admin menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” area. The table of plugins can flow down your screen for a while, depending on how many plugins you have installed on your blog …
(The WordPress Plugins Screen)
Useful Info:
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 the ‘Apply’ button …
Your Plugins area will now be made more manageable with a page scrolling feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Plugin Search” function …
You will see information about plugins in different backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (inactive vs. active and up-to-date vs. out-of-date) …
Plugins that need updating 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 provides fast plugin updates, so that the process of updating your plugins happens with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat this process for any other plugins on your site that need to be updated, or see the section below if you have several 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 update one plugin at a time, the next step is to learn how to bulk-update WordPress plugins.
How To Update Various WP Plugins Simultaneously
To upgrade multiple plugins in one go using the automatic updating feature, go to the “Plugins” section and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Tick the checkbox next to 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 drop-down menu at the top of the page, select Update …
And then click Apply …
Your selected plugins will automatically begin to update …
After your plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to your Plugins screen, or select another section of your dashboard …
Once your plugins are all up-to-date, the plugin notifications disappear (i.e. the “at-a-glance” indicators and “There is a new version of XYZ plugin available” messages no longer display) …
All plugins are now up-to-date!
(When your site or blog uses the latest version of all plugins, update alerts do not display)
Now that you know how to automatically update plugins, let’s take a look at how to safely uninstall plugins safely from your WordPress blog or website.
How To Remove WordPress Plugins
It’s a good idea to uninstall plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This decreases server resources and also help to minimize potential problems.
In this section, you will learn how to delete unused plugins from your WordPress site or blog.
Always create 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 remove a plugin, go to your dashboard menu and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins page, find the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is inactive.
Hint: Inactive plugins have a different colored background 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 …
Once you have deactivated the plugin, click Delete …
If you would like to have a look at all the files that will be deleted before proceeding, 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 associated with the plugin that you are about to delete will display on your screen …
If you are positively sure about going ahead and deleting these plugin files, then click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugins and related files will be deleted from your server …
Deleting Multiple WordPress 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 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 check box, or selecting the checkbox 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 dropdown menu …
Click Apply …
The selected plugins will be deactivated …
To delete all or some of the inactive plugins, go to the “Plugins” area and click on the Inactive link on the main menu …
Select all of the plugins you want to delete by either placing a tick next to their check box, or click on the check box next to the Plugin column header to select and delete all inactive plugins …
Once you have ticked all the check boxes next to the plugins that you want deleted, choose Delete from the Bulk Actions dropdown 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 want to proceed to the next step and remove all of the selected plugins …
Your plugins will be deleted …
Useful Management Tools For WP Plugins
As well as the methods shown above, you can install other 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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