In a previous blog post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use plugins to easily add new features or functionality to your web site with no software programming knowledge required.
To view this article, go here:
In this tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping plugins up-to-date, how to easily upgrade and delete plugins from your site, and some great plugin management tools if you currently own or manage multiple WordPress sites.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Your Plugins Need Regular Updating
The WordPress software is regularly updated (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in earlier software releases, and to improve existing features.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, there will typically be new new update notices for plugins when new WordPress versions are released.
The reason for this, is because most WordPress plugins are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes code in the newly-released WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were developed and tested with a previous version. Whenever this happens, there is a potential for problems 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 needed). All you have to do as a WordPress user, is just maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is really simple to do.
Keeping your plugins regularly updated and deleting old plugins you no longer use is an essential aspect of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid any potential conflicts and errors.
The step-by-step tutorial below explains how to automatically update and delete plugins inside your dashboard without requiring web coding knowledge or skills.
Upgrading And Deleting WordPress Plugins – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress provides a few methods to notify you when plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can tell immediately how many plugins need updating as soon as you log into your Administration site just by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
In the example below, nine plugins need to be updated …
You can also tell how many plugins need updating from your WordPress Administration Toolbar (the screenshot below shows that 9 plugins should be updated) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also lets you know which plugins need to be updated …
As well as providing information about plugins that have available updates, the Plugins screen provides links to the plugin developer sites and gives you the option to update your plugins instantly …
Let’s start by learning how to upgrade WP plugins individually.
Updating Plugins One At A Time
We strongly recommend performing a full backup of your data and files before making any updates to your blog or website.
In your WP admin menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” screen will display in your browser. The list of plugins can flow down your page for a while, depending on how many plugins you have added to your site …
(The WordPress Plugins Screen)
Useful Tips:
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 screen and enter a smaller number of items per page (by default, all plugins display on the screen), then click Apply …
Your Plugins section will now be reduced in size with a pagination feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Search” feature …
You will see information about plugins in different color backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (active vs. inactive and up-to-date vs. outdated) …
Plugins that require upgrading show the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin Name] available” …
Find the plugin that needs to be updated and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides smooth & fast plugin updates, so that updating your plugins takes place with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat this process for all plugins on your site that need to be updated, or refer to the section below if you have a number of plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update all plugins in one simple operation.
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Now that you know how to upgrade individual plugins, let’s show you how to update several plugins simultaneously.
How To Bulk-Update WP Plugins
To update multiple WordPress plugins in a single operation using the automatic upgrade feature, go to the “Plugins” page and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Click on the check box 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 above the table of plugins, select Update …
Click Apply …
Your selected plugins will automatically begin updating …
Once your plugins have all been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to your Plugins section, or choose another option from the WP dashboard menu …
Once all plugins are up-to-date, the plugin notifications disappear (i.e. the “at-a-glance” indicators and “There is a new version of XYZ plugin available” messages no longer display) …
All plugins are now up-to-date!
(When your site or blog uses the latest version of all plugins, notification icons no longer show)
Now that you know how to automatically upgrade your in the dashboard, let’s take a look at how to safely remove plugins safely from your WordPress site.
How To Delete WordPress Plugins
Occasionally, you may want to delete plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This conserves resource usage and also helps to eliminate causes of problems.
In this section, you will learn how to safely deactivate and delete unused plugins from your site or blog.
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 reinstall your site.
To delete a plugin, go to your dashboard menu and select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins screen, locate 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 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 browse 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” page …
The entire list of files belonging to the plugin that you are about to delete will display on your screen …
If you are positively sure about going ahead and deleting these plugin, just click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugin(s) will be removed from your WordPress installation …
Deleting Multiple Plugins Simultaneously
You can delete all inactive plugins at once, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be cleared.
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 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 Apply …
All selected plugins will be deactivated …
Once you have deactivated these plugins, click on the Inactive 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 only the plugins you want to remove by checking their individual boxes …
Once you have selected all of the plugins that you want deleted, specify Delete from the Bulk Actions pull-down 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 absolutely sure that you would like to go ahead and remove all of the plugins listed …
All plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Practical Management Tools For WP Plugins
In addition to the methods shown above, you can install WordPress plugins 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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