In a separate post, we provide a detailed explanation of what plugins are all about and how you can use plugins to add new features to your website without touching code.
To read the article, go here:
In this tutorial you will learn why WordPress plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to automatically update and uninstall plugins from your site, and useful plugin management tips if you need to run multiple WordPress sites or blogs.
Why Many Of Your Plugins Need Upgrading
New WordPress versions are constantly being released (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in older releases, and to improve existing features or introduce new ones.
Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, there will typically be new updates for WordPress plugins each time a new version of WordPress is announced.
This is because most WordPress plugins are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes code in the newly-released WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were developed for a previous version. When this happens, issues can sometimes develop.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are very proactive when it comes to making sure that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if updating is required). All you have to do on your end, is keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is really simple 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 site management and helps to avoid potential conflicts or errors.
The WordPress tutorial below explains how to automatically update and delete WordPress plugins safely in your dashboard without requiring web programming skills.
Upgrading And Deleting Plugins Safely From The Dashboard – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress has several ways to alert users when plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can immediately see how many plugins are out-of-date as soon as you log into your Administration site just by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, 9 plugins have older versions that need to be updated …
You can also see how many plugins need updating from your WP Admin Toolbar (in the screenshot below, you can again see that 9 plugins should be brought up to date) …
The Plugins screen (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also lets you know which plugins need updating …
In addition to providing information about plugins that have updates available, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin download sites and gives you the option to update your plugins with one-click …
Let’s start by learning how to update WordPress plugins individually.
Update Plugins One At A Time
We recommend performing a complete backup of your data and files before making any changes to your blog or website.
In your dashboard menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” area will display in your browser. This screen can be quite long depending on how many plugins you have installed in your site …
(The WordPress Plugins Page)
Notes:
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 area and type in a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show on the screen by default), 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” function …
WordPress displays information about plugins in different color backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (inactive vs. active and out-of-date vs up-to-date) …
Plugins that need upgrading show the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin] available” …
Find 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 updating process, so that updating your plugins takes place “behind the scenes” 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 many plugins that are out-of-date and would like to upgrade all plugins in bulk.
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Now that you know how to upgrade one WordPress plugin at a time, let’s show you how to bulk-update plugins.
Bulk-Updating Plugins
To update multiple plugins in a single operation 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 …
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 above the plugin list, select Update …
Click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will automatically begin updating …
After the update process has been completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to the Plugins screen, or visit a different section of your dashboard …
Once all plugins are up-to-date, the update reminders 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 have now been upgraded!
(When plugins on your site are up-to-date, notification icons do not display)
Now that you know how to automatically update WordPress plugins, let’s take a look at how to safely delete plugins from your WordPress site.
Deleting WP Plugins
At times, you may choose to delete plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This can conserve resources on your server and also help to eliminate causes of some problems.
In this section, you will learn how to deactivate and delete unused plugins from your WordPress site.
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 delete a plugin, go to your admin menu and choose Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins page, locate the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is inactive.
Hint: Inactive plugins are listed in a different background color than active plugins and display an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, then click on Deactivate before proceeding …
Next, click Delete …
If you want to have a look at all the files that will be deleted before taking 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 associated with the plugin that you are about to delete will be listed on your screen …
If you are absolutely sure that you want to go ahead and delete the plugin files, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugin(s) will be deleted …
How To Safely 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 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, choose Deactivate from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click Apply …
Your selected plugins will be deactivated …
Once you have deactivated these plugins, click on the Inactive link on the menu at the top of the page …
Click the checkbox in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to remove by checking its box …
Once you have selected all of the plugins that you want deleted, select Delete from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click Apply …
A list of all selected plugins will show up 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 sure that you want to proceed to the next step and delete all of the plugins listed …
All plugins will be deleted …
Useful Management Tools For WordPress Plugins
As well as 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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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)