In another blog post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use these to extend your blog’s capabilities.
You can view the article here:
In this tutorial you will learn why plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to easily upgrade and delete plugins, and discover some great tips to help you better manage your plugins if you run multiple WordPress sites or blogs.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Many Plugins Need Upgrading
The WordPress software is regularly updated (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in earlier software versions, and to improve existing features or introduce new functionality to users.
Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, there will typically be new new update notifications for WordPress plugins each time a new WordPress version is made available.
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 developed for a previous version. When this happens, there is a potential for conflicts to sometimes develop.
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 updating is needed). All you need to do on your end, is simply maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is really easy and simple to do.
Keeping your plugins up-to-date and deleting old plugins you no longer need is an essential aspect of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid any problems or errors.
The WordPress tutorial below explains how to update and delete WordPress plugins in your WordPress dashboard with no coding knowledge needed.
How To Automatically Update And Delete Plugins – Tutorial
WordPress provides a number of different methods to notify users when plugins need updating.
For example, you can tell immediately how many plugins are out-of-date from your Administration area just by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
In the example below, nine plugins have older versions that need updating …
You can also view how many plugins need to be updated from your WP Administration Toolbar (in the example below, you can again see that nine plugins should be updated) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you what plugins need to be updated …
As well as providing information about plugins that have available updates, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin developer sites and gives you the option to update your plugins instantly …
Let’s start by showing you how to upgrade individual plugins.
How To Update Individual WordPress Plugins
Always make a complete backup of your site files and database before updating your website.
In your WP admin menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” screen will display in your browser. This table of plugins can be quite long depending on the number of plugins you have added to your blog …
(Plugins Section)
Useful Info:
If you have too many plugins and would like to reduce the number of plugins displaying on your page, 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 up on the page by default), then click Apply …
Your Plugins section 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 Installed Plugins” field …
WordPress displays 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 that need upgrading display the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin] available” …
Locate the plugin that needs updating and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides streamlined plugin updates, so that updating your plugins happens with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat this process for all plugins on your site that need to be updated, or see the section below if you have several plugins that are out-of-date and would like to upgrade them all in bulk.
***
Now that you know how to upgrade individual plugins, let’s show you how to upgrade many plugins simultaneously.
How To Bulk-Update WordPress Plugins
To update multiple plugins simultaneously 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 …
Tick the check box in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to upgrade by checking its box …
In the Bulk Actions drop-down menu above your plugin list, select Update …
And then click Apply …
Your selected plugins will begin updating …
Once all plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to the Plugins area, or go to a different 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” messages no longer display on your screen, toolbar and menus) …
You have updated all plugins on your site!
(When your site or blog uses the latest version of all plugins, update alerts do not display)
Now that you know how to automatically upgrade your in the WP dashboard, let’s take a look at how to uninstall plugins from your blog or website.
Deleting WordPress Plugins
At times, you may decide to delete WordPress plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This helps to conserve resources on your server and also eliminates problems.
In this section, you will learn how to safely uninstall 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 restore your site.
To delete a plugin, go to your dashboard menu and choose Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins area, find the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is deactivated.
Hint: Inactive plugins have 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 …
Click on Delete …
If you would like 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 …
The entire list of files associated with the plugin selected for removalwill display on your screen …
If you are sure that you would like to proceed and delete the plugin, just click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugin(s) will be deleted from your WordPress installation …
Bulk-Deleting Plugins
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be deleted.
Note: To delete any plugins that are presently 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 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, select 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” area and click on the Inactive link on the main menu …
Click the check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to delete by checking their individual boxes …
Once you have selected all of the plugins that you want deleted, choose Delete from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click Apply …
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 sure that you want to proceed to the next step and remove all of the plugins listed …
The plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Managing WordPress Plugins – Tools
As well as the methods shown above, you can use a range of 3rd-party 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.
***
"I am beyond impressed with what you have put together. I can tell that you put a ton of hard work into building what you have. You have the absolute best content on WordPress I have ever seen!" - Robert T. Jillie