In a previous blog post, we provide a detailed explanation of what WordPress plugins are all about and how you can use these to enhance your website’s capabilities.
You can view this article here:
In this tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping plugins up-to-date, how to safely upgrade and delete plugins from your site, and some plugin management tools if you own or manage multiple WordPress sites or blogs.
Why Plugins Need To Be Upgraded
WordPress regularly updates its software (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in previous software versions, as well as to improve existing features.
Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, you can expect to see at least some new new update notifications for plugins every.
This is because most plugins for WordPress are created by external developers, so sometimes features in the new WordPress version conflict with plugins that were built for a previous version. Whenever this happens, conflicts can sometimes develop.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are quite proactive when it comes to making sure that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if this is required). All you need to do on your end, is simply keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is really easy to do.
Keeping your 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 conflicts and errors.
The tutorial below explains how to upgrade and delete plugins in the WP dashboard without editing web code.
How To Automatically Update And Delete Plugins Safely – Tutorial
WordPress uses a number of different methods to inform you when plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can immediately see how many plugins are out-of-date inside your Admin area just by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
In the screenshot below, nine WP plugins have older versions that need updating …
You can also tell how many plugins need updating from your WP Toolbar (as shown below, several plugins should be brought up to date) …
The Plugins page (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also lets you know which plugins need updating …
As well as providing information about which plugins have updates available, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin download sites and gives you the option to update the plugins instantly …
Let’s start by showing you how to upgrade individual WordPress plugins.
Updating Plugins Individually
We strongly recommend performing a backup of your site files and database before making any upgrades to your website or blog.
In your admin menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” section will display in your browser. The list of plugins can be quite lengthy depending on the number of plugins you have installed on your blog …
(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 page and enter a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show on the page by default), then click Apply …
Your Plugins area will now be reduced in size with a ’numbered pages’ feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Search Plugins” field …
You will see plugin information in different color backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (inactive vs. active and up-to-date vs. out-of-date) …
Plugins in need of upgrading show the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin Name] available” …
Select 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 takes place with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat the above process for any other 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 upgrade all plugins in bulk.
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Now that you know how to upgrade plugins individually, the next step is to learn how to bulk-update WP plugins.
Bulk-Updating WP Plugins
To upgrade multiple plugins at the same time directly inside your dashboard, go to the “Plugins” section 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 pull-down menu above the plugin table, select Update …
Click Apply …
Your selected plugins will all be updated at once …
Once all 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, the plugin notifications 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 plugins on your site are up-to-date, notification icons disappear)
Now that you know how to automatically update in your WP dashboard, it’s time to learn how to safely remove plugins from your WordPress blog or website.
How To Safely Remove WP Plugins
Occasionally, you may want to delete 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 eliminate problems.
In this section, you will learn how to delete unused plugins from your WordPress blog or site.
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 restore your site.
To remove a plugin, go to your admin menu and choose Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins section, find the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is inactive.
Hint: Inactive plugins are listed in 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 proceeding with your plugin deletion …
Next, click Delete …
If you want 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” section …
A complete list of files belonging to the plugin that you are about to remove will be listed on your screen …
If you are positively certain that you would like to proceed and delete the plugin files, just click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugins and related files will be deleted …
Deleting Several WP Plugins At Once
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins on your site, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be removed.
Note: To delete any plugins that are currently 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 checkbox, or selecting the checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …
Next, select Deactivate from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click the Apply button …
All 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 …
Tick the check box in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to remove by checking their individual boxes …
Once you have selected all of the plugins that you want deleted, choose Delete from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click Apply …
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 delete all of the plugins listed …
All plugins will be deleted …
Managing WP Plugins
As well as the methods shown above, you can use a range 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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"This is AMAZING! I had learnt about how to use WordPress previously, but this covers absolutely everything and more!! Incredible value! Thank you!" - Monique, Warrior Forum