In another blog post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use these to increase your blog’s functionality.
To read the article, go here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping all WordPress plugins up-to-date, how to automatically upgrade and delete plugins, and discover some great tips to help you better manage your plugins if you manage multiple WordPress sites or blogs.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Many WordPress Plugins Need Updating
New versions of WordPress are regularly released (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in earlier versions, as well as to improve existing features or introduce new functionality to WordPress users.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, you can expect to see at least some new updates for plugins each time a new WordPress version is released.
The reason for this, is because most plugins for WordPress are created by third-party developers, so sometimes 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 fairly 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 have to do on your end, is maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is really simple and easy to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date and deleting old plugins you no longer use is part of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid any potential errors and problems.
The tutorial below explains how to automatically update and delete plugins from the dashboard without web coding knowledge or skills necessary.
How To Update And Delete Plugins Safely – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress has several ways to let you know when your plugins need updating.
For example, you can see ‘at a glance’ how many plugins need to be updated inside your Administration site just by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, nine plugins have older versions that need to be updated …
You can also see how many plugins need to be updated from your WordPress Notification Toolbar (as shown below, several plugins should be updated) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you what plugins need updating …
As well as providing information about which plugins have available updates, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin developer pages and gives you the option to update your plugin individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by learning how to update individual WP plugins.
Update Plugins Individually
We strongly recommend making a backup of your data and files before upgrading your website.
From your admin menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” screen. This list of plugins can be quite lengthy depending on the number of plugins you have installed on your blog …
(Plugins Page)
Useful Info:
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 up on the screen by default, i.e. “999”), then click Apply …
Your Plugins section will now be made more manageable with a page scrolling feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Plugin Search” field …
WordPress displays plugin information in different color backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (active vs. inactive and up-to-date vs. outdated) …
Plugins in need of 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 provides streamlined plugin updates, so that the process of updating your plugins happens “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat this process for any other plugins on your site that need updating, or refer to the section below if you have several plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update all plugins at once.
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Now that you know how to upgrade WP plugins individually, it’s time to learn how to update several WordPress plugins simultaneously.
How To Bulk-Upgrade Plugins
To bulk-upgrade plugins from your admin area, 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 each plugin you want to upgrade by checking its box …
In the Bulk Actions drop-down menu above the plugin table, choose Update …
Click Apply …
The plugins you have selected 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 select another option from the WordPress admin menu …
Once all plugins are 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” notices no longer display) …
All plugins are now up-to-date!
(When your site uses the latest version of all plugins, update messages disappear)
Now that you know how to automatically upgrade WordPress plugins, it’s time to learn how to safely uninstall plugins from your site or blog.
Deleting Plugins
Occasionally, you may want to delete WordPress plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This can help conserve resources on your server and also helps to eliminate causes of some problems.
In this section, you will learn how to uninstall unused plugins from your blog or site.
We strongly recommend creating 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 click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins area, find the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is deactivated.
Hint: Inactive plugins appear in a different colored background than active plugins and display an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, click on Deactivate before going any further …
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 …
The entire list of files belonging to the plugin that you are about to remove will be listed on your screen …
If you are absolutely certain that you want to proceed and delete the plugin, then click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugins and related files will be deleted …
Bulk-Deleting WP Plugins
You can delete all inactive plugins at once, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be uninstalled.
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 checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …
Once you have done this, 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 …
Tick the checkbox in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins 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 drop-down menu …
Click the Apply button …
A list of all selected plugins will be displayed 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 absolutely sure that you would like to proceed to the next step and remove all of the plugins listed …
Your plugins will be deleted …
Managing Plugins
As well as the methods shown above, you can install Free and Paid WordPress plugins that let you 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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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now