In another blog post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use these to add new features to your web site with no coding knowledge required.
You can read this article here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn why plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to update and remove your WordPress plugins, and discover some great tips to help you better manage your plugins.
Why Many Of Your WordPress Plugins Need To Be Updated
WordPress regularly updates its software (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in earlier releases, and to improve existing features.
Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, there will typically be new new update notices for plugins every.
The reason for this, is because most plugins for WordPress are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes the code in the newly-released WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were built 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 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 maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is very easy and simple to do.
Keeping your plugins up-to-date and deleting old plugins you no longer need is part of good WordPress management and helps to avoid any problems and errors.
The tutorial below explains how to automatically upgrade and delete plugins from your WP admin dashboard without touching web code.
How To Upgrade And Delete Plugins Safely – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress employs several ways to let users know when plugins need updating.
For example, you can immediately see how many plugins are out-of-date as soon as you log into your Admin area simply by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
In the screenshot below, 9 WP plugins are out of date and need to be updated …
You can also check how many plugins need to be updated from your WP Admin Toolbar (the screenshot below shows that nine plugins have to be updated) …
The Plugins screen (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also notifies you about plugins that need to be updated …
As well as providing information about plugins that have available updates, the Plugins page provides links to the plugin download pages and gives you the option to update the plugins with one-click …
Let’s start by learning how to upgrade individual WP plugins.
How To Upgrade WordPress Plugins One At A Time
We recommend performing a backup of your data and files before making any changes to your website or blog.
From your dashboard menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” section. The list of plugins can flow down your page for a while, depending on the number of plugins you have added to your blog …
(Plugins Section)
Additional Info:
If you have too many plugins and would like to make this section more manageable, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins screen and type in a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show up on the screen by default), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
Your Plugins area will now be made more manageable with a ’numbered pages’ feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Plugin Search” box …
You will see plugin information 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 updating have a distinctive 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 has done away with the loading screen when updating plugins and streamlined the process, so that the process of updating your plugins takes place with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat the above process for any other plugins on your site that need updating, or refer to the section below if you have many plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update them all in bulk.
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Now that you know how to upgrade one WP plugin at a time, the next step is to learn how to update several WP plugins simultaneously.
Bulk-Upgrading WordPress Plugins
To upgrade multiple WordPress plugins in one go using the automatic update feature, go to the “Plugins” screen 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 at the top of the page, select Update …
Click Apply …
Your selected plugins will begin to update automatically …
After all updates are completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to your Plugins area, 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” notices no longer display on your screen, toolbar and menus) …
All plugins are now up-to-date!
(When your plugins are up-to-date, update messages do not display)
Now that you know how to automatically update in the admin dashboard, let’s take a look at how to remove plugins safely from your site or blog.
How To Delete WP Plugins
It’s a good idea to uninstall plugins that you no longer require. This helps to decrease resource usage and help you avoid causes of some problems.
In this section, we show you how to safely delete unused plugins from your WordPress 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 admin menu and select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins page, locate the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is inactive.
Hint: Inactive plugins have a different colored background than active plugins and show an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, click on Deactivate before continuing …
Next, click Delete …
If you need 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 …
All files belonging to the plugin selected for removalwill display on your screen …
If you are certain about going ahead and deleting these plugin, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugin(s) will be deleted …
Deleting Multiple Plugins In Bulk
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 currently 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 check box, 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 Apply …
All selected plugins will be deactivated …
To delete all or some of the inactive plugins on your site, go to the “Plugins” area and click on the Inactive link in the Plugins menu …
Select all of the plugins you want to delete by either placing a tick next to their checkbox, 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 to delete, choose Delete from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click Apply …
A list of all selected plugins will display 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 sure that you would like to go ahead and remove all of the plugins listed …
The selected plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
WordPress Tools For Managing WP Plugins
In addition to the methods shown above, you can use WordPress plugins that help you manage your WordPress plugins.
PLUGIN CENTRAL
Plugin Central helps you manage your plugins with options that let you install plugins directly, displays the status of plugins in need of update in your Dashboard and also allows you to update multiple plugins with one click …
For more details about using this plugin, go here:
Managing WordPress Plugins On Multiple Sites
When plugin updates get released, the best practice is to upgrde that plugin to the latest version ASAP.
What if you have multiple sites with the same plugin installed? One option, is to login to each site individually and then update the plugin manually from that site’s own WordPress dashboard. With multiple sites, this process can take quite a while!
WordPress Power User Tip: If you manage a number of WordPress sites or blogs, you can install, update and uninstall plugins on all of your sites automatically and simultaneously using various WordPress management tools.
Below are a couple of WordPress management tools you can look at:
Jetpack Plugin
Jetpack is a multifunctional plugin for WordPress that offers users a wide range of added functionality, allowing self-hosted WordPress site owners to access WordPress.com’s infrastructure and take advantage of robust stats, automated social sharing, and a whole lot more.
(Jetpack gives you access to range of powerful WordPress.com features)
One of these features is “Jetpack Manage”.
Jetpack Manage lets you manage multiple WordPress sites and plugins from one dashboard on WordPress.com.
With Manage, you can update plugins, set plugins to update automatically, and activate or deactivate plugins on a site-by-site basis or all at once, whether you’re on your computer, tablet, or mobile phone.
To download this plugin, visit this site:
ManageWP
(ManageWP is a very popular WordPress management tool for multiple WordPress sites)
ManageWP lets you manage all of your sites and blogs from one place, including updates, backups, security and more. The tool features easy one-click upgrades and instant login to your sites.
To download the plugin, go here:
WP Pipeline – WordPress Management Tool
(With WP Pipeline, you can update all of your WordPress sites, plugins and themes from a single WP installation)
WP Pipeline works in a similar way to ManageWP, but has a one-time license fee instead of recurring payments. It lets you control and organize your entire online WordPress presence and perform multiple upgrades from a single WordPress installation.
To download and use the plugin, visit this site:
Congratulations! Now you know how to automatically update and delete plugins safely in WordPress without coding knowledge needed.
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"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum