In a separate blog post, we provide an overview of what WordPress plugins are all about and how you can use these to increase your blog’s capabilities.
You can view this article here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn why plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to easily update and remove your WordPress plugins, and discover useful tips to help you better manage your plugins.
Why Many Plugins Need Updating
New versions of WordPress are regularly released (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in previous software releases, as well as to improve existing features.
Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, there will typically be new new update notifications for plugins each time a new WordPress version is announced.
The reason for this, is because most plugins for WordPress are created by external developers, so sometimes the code in the new WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were developed for a previous version. When this happens, issues 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 needed). All you have to do on your end, is maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is very easy and simple to do.
Keeping your plugins regularly updated and deleting old plugins you no longer use is part of good WordPress management and helps to avoid any conflicts or errors.
The step-by-step tutorial below explains how to automatically upgrade and delete plugins without requiring web coding or programming skills.
How To Automatically Upgrade And Delete Plugins In WordPress – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress uses a few ways to alert users when plugins need updating.
For example, you can instantly see how many plugins need updating as soon as you log into your WP Dashboard by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, 9 WordPress plugins are out of date and need updating …
You can also check how many plugins need to be updated from your WordPress Notification Toolbar (in the screenshot below, you can see how many plugins should be brought up to date) …
The Plugins page (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also lets you know which plugins need to be updated …
As well as providing information about which plugins have available updates, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin download pages and gives you the option to update your plugins with one-click …
Let’s start by showing you how to upgrade individual WP plugins.
Updating WordPress Plugins Individually
Always make a backup of your data and files before upgrading your website or blog.
From your dashboard menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” section. This list of plugins can be quite long depending on the number of plugins you have installed in your site …
(Plugins Section)
Additional Info:
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 type in a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show up on the page by default), then click Apply …
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” feature …
WordPress displays plugin information in different backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (inactive vs. active and up-to-date vs. outdated) …
Plugins that need upgrading display the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin] available” …
Find the plugin that needs to be updated 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 happens with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat the above process for all plugins on your site that need to be updated, or refer to the section below if you have several plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update them all at the same time.
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Now that you know how to update WP plugins individually, the next step is to learn how to bulk-update plugins.
How To Bulk-Update Plugins
To bulk-update WP plugins directly inside your dashboard, go to the “Plugins” area and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Tick the checkbox 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 pull-down menu above your plugin list, choose Update …
And then click Apply …
Your selected plugins will all be updated at once …
After all plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to the Plugins section, or choose another option from the admin menu …
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) …
You have updated all plugins on your site!
(When your site uses the latest version of all plugins, notification icons no longer appear)
Now that you know how to automatically update plugins, let’s show you how to remove plugins from your WordPress blog or website.
Deleting Plugins
At times, you may decide to remove plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This helps to conserve resources on your server and help to reduce potential problems.
In this section, we show you how to safely uninstall unused plugins from your site or blog.
We strongly recommend creating 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 reinstall your site.
To remove a plugin, go to your WP admin menu and select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins page, find the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is deactivated.
Hint: Inactive plugins have 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 Delete …
If you want to browse 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 …
All files associated with the plugin selected for removalwill be listed on your screen …
If you are positively certain about going ahead and deleting the plugin files, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugin(s) will be deleted from your server …
How To Safely Delete Several 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, 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) …
Once you have done this, choose Deactivate from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click Apply …
Your selected plugins will be deactivated …
To delete all or some of the inactive plugins on your site, go to the “Plugins” screen 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 selected all the plugins that you want deleted, specify Delete from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click the Apply button …
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 certain that you want to proceed to the next step and remove all of the plugins listed …
Your plugins will be deleted …
Managing WordPress Plugins – Tools
As well as the methods shown above, you can use a number of tools that let you 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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