In another post, we provide an overview of what WP plugins are all about and how you can use these to easily add new features to your website or blog without touching code.
To view this article, go 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 useful plugin management tools if you manage multiple WordPress sites or blogs.
Why Many Of Your WordPress Plugins Need To Be Regularly Upgraded
New versions of WordPress are regularly released (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in older software versions, and to improve existing features or introduce new functionality to WordPress users.
Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, you can expect to see at least some new updates for WordPress plugins every.
The reason for this, is because most plugins for WordPress are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes features in the newly-released WordPress version conflict 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 fairly proactive when it comes to making sure that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if required). All you have to do as a website owner, is just maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is really easy and simple to do.
Keeping your plugins up-to-date and deleting old plugins you no longer need is part of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid problems or errors.
The WordPress tutorial below explains how to update and delete plugins in WordPress with no web coding knowledge or skills needed.
Upgrading And Deleting Plugins From The Dashboard – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress provides a number of different methods to let users know when plugins on their blog need updating.
For example, you can see how many plugins need to be updated from your Admin area simply by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, you can see that 9 plugins need updating …
You can also check how many plugins need to be updated from your WP Administration Toolbar (in the screenshot below, you can again see that 9 plugins require updating) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you how many plugins need updating …
In addition to providing information about plugins that have available updates, the Plugins screen provides links to the plugin download pages and gives you the option to update the plugin individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by learning how to upgrade plugins one at a time.
Update Plugins Individually
We recommend performing a backup of your site files and database before making any upgrades to your blog or website.
In your admin menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” page. The table of plugins can run down your page for some length, depending on the number of plugins you have installed in your blog …
(The WordPress Plugins Screen)
Notes:
If you have too many plugins and would like to reduce the number of plugins displayed on the page, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins area and enter a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show up on the page by default), then click Apply …
Your Plugins section 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 backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (inactive vs. active and up-to-date vs. outdated) …
Plugins that require updating have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin] available” …
Find the plugin that needs updating and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides streamlined plugin updates, so that updating your plugins takes place “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat this process for any other plugins on your site that need updating, or see the section below if you have a number of plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update them all in one simple operation.
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Now that you know how to update individual plugins, it’s time to learn how to bulk-upgrade plugins.
Bulk-Upgrading Plugins
To update multiple plugins in one go 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 the checkbox in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to update by checking its box …
In the Bulk Actions drop-down menu at the top of the page, select Update …
Click Apply …
Your selected plugins will begin the update process …
After all updates have completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to your Plugins section, or choose a different section of your dashboard …
Once all plugins are up-to-date, any plugin alerts disappear (i.e. the “at-a-glance” indicators and “There is a new version of XYZ plugin available” notices no longer display) …
You have updated all plugins on your site!
(When plugins on your site are all up-to-date, update messages no longer show)
Now that you know how to upgrade WordPress in the dashboard, it’s time to learn how to delete plugins safely from your blog or website.
How To Safely Remove Plugins
At times, you may choose to delete WP plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This can help decrease resources on your server and helps to eliminate problems.
In this section, we show you how to safely uninstall unused plugins from your site or blog.
Always create 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 delete a plugin, go to your main menu and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins screen, find the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is inactive.
Hint: Inactive plugins have a different background color than active plugins and show an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, click on Deactivate before proceeding …
Once you have deactivated the plugin, click Delete …
If you would like to review a list of all the files that will be deleted before going ahead, 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 remove will display on your screen …
If you are positively sure that you would like to go ahead and delete the selected plugin files, then click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugins and related files will be deleted from your server …
How To Safely Bulk-Delete Plugins
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be removed.
Note: To delete any plugins that are currently 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 checkbox, or selecting the checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …
Next, specify Deactivate from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click the Apply button …
All selected plugins will be deactivated …
Once you have deactivated your plugins, click on the Inactive link on the menu at the top of the page …
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 to delete, specify 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 absolutely certain that you want to go ahead and delete all of the plugins listed …
The plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Managing Plugins
As well as the methods shown above, you can install a range 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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"I have used the tutorials to teach all of my clients and it has probably never been so easy for everyone to learn WordPress ... Now I don't need to buy all these very expensive video courses that often don't deliver what they promise." - Stefan Wendt, Internet Marketing Success Group