In a previous post, we provide an overview of what plugins are about and how you can use these to add new features and functionality to your web site without editing code.
To read the article, go here:
In this tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping WordPress plugins up-to-date, how to automatically upgrade and delete your WordPress plugins, and discover useful tools to help you better manage your plugins.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Plugins Need Frequent Upgrading
New versions of WordPress are frequently being released (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 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 every.
This is because most plugins for WordPress are created by third-party developers, so sometimes features in the new WordPress version conflict with plugins that were developed and tested with a previous version. When this happens, there is a potential for problems 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 keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is really quick, simple and easy to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins regularly updated and deleting old plugins you no longer use is part of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid problems or errors.
The step-by-step tutorial below explains how to automatically upgrade and delete plugins safely in the dashboard with no coding skills or knowledge needed.
How To Automatically Upgrade And Delete Plugins – Tutorial
WordPress uses several methods to alert you when plugins need updating.
For example, you can immediately see how many plugins are out-of-date as soon as you log into your Administration area just by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, nine plugins need to be updated …
You can also view how many plugins need to be updated from your WP Admin Toolbar (the screenshot below shows that several plugins have to be updated) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also lets you know which plugins need updating …
As well as providing information about plugins that have updates available, the Plugins page provides links to the plugin download sites and gives you the option to update the plugin individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by showing you how to update one plugin at a time.
Upgrade WordPress Plugins Individually
Always make a backup of your website before updating your website.
From your main menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” screen. This list of plugins can be quite lengthy depending on how many plugins you have installed in your blog …
(WordPress Plugins Section)
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 page and enter a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show on the page by default, i.e. “999”), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
Your Plugins page will now be made more manageable with a pagination feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Search” box …
You will see information about plugins in different color backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (inactive vs. active and up-to-date vs. outdated) …
Plugins in need of updating display the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin] available” …
Find the plugin that needs to be updated and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides simple plugin updates, so that the process of updating your plugins happens with just “one click” 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 at once.
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Now that you know how to upgrade plugins one at a time, the next step is to learn how to update multiple plugins simultaneously.
How To Bulk-Upgrade Plugins
To bulk-update WP plugins simultaneously from your admin area, go to the “Plugins” section 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 upgrade by checking its box …
In the Bulk Actions drop-down menu above the table of plugins, choose Update …
Click Apply …
Your selected plugins will begin the update process …
Once the update process has been completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to the Plugins screen, or go to a different section of your dashboard …
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 on your screen, toolbar and menus) …
You have updated all plugins on your site to their latest version!
(When your site uses the latest version of all plugins, update alerts no longer display)
Now that you know how to upgrade plugins, let’s take a look at how to safely uninstall plugins from your WordPress blog or website.
How To Remove Plugins
As part of smart WordPress site management practices, it’s a good idea to remove inactive plugins. This reduces resources on your server and also help to minimize potential problems.
In this section, we show you how to remove 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 restore your site.
To delete a plugin, go to your dashboard menu and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins page, find the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is inactive.
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, then click on Deactivate before continuing 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 …
A complete list of files belonging to the plugin that you are about to delete will be listed on your screen …
If you are positively certain about going ahead and deleting the plugin, just click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugin(s) will be deleted …
How To Safely Delete Several WP Plugins Simultaneously
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins on your site, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be deleted.
Note: To delete any plugins that are presently active, your will 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) …
Once you have done this, specify Deactivate from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click the Apply button …
Your selected plugins will be deactivated …
To delete all or some of the inactive plugins, go to the “Plugins” area and click on the Inactive link on the main menu …
Click on the check box in 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 to delete, choose Delete from the Bulk Actions dropdown 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 want to proceed to the next step and remove all of the plugins listed …
The selected plugins will be deleted …
Useful Management Tools For WordPress Plugins
In addition to the methods shown above, you can install a range of 3rd-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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