In another article, we provide an overview of what plugins are about and how you can use these to easily add new features to your blog with no technical knowledge required.
You can read this article here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn why WordPress plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to update and remove your WordPress plugins, and some great plugin management tips.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Many Of Your WordPress Plugins Need Updating
New versions of WordPress are frequently being released (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in older 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 WordPress plugins are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes code in the new WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were built for a previous version. Whenever this happens, there is a potential for issues to sometimes develop.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are fairly proactive when it comes to ensuring that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if this is needed). All you have to do on your end, is simply maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is really easy to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins regularly updated and deleting old plugins you no longer need is an essential aspect of good WordPress management and helps to avoid any potential errors or conflicts.
The step-by-step tutorial below explains how to automatically upgrade and delete plugins safely in WordPress without requiring web coding skills.
Upgrading And Deleting Plugins – Tutorial
WordPress utilizes a number of different methods to inform you when plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can immediately see how many plugins need updating inside your WP Dashboard by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
In the screenshot below, you can see that 9 WP plugins need updating …
You can also tell how many plugins need to be updated from your WP Notification Toolbar (as shown below, a number of plugins should be brought up to date) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you which plugins need updating …
In addition to providing information about which plugins have updates available, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin developer pages and gives you the option to update the plugin instantly …
Let’s start by showing you how to upgrade one WordPress plugin at a time.
How To Update Plugins One At A Time
We strongly recommend performing a complete backup of your site files and database before upgrading your blog or website.
From your admin menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” screen. The table of plugins can run down your page for a while, depending on how many plugins you have added to your blog …
(The WordPress Plugins Screen)
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 area and enter a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show up on the page by default, i.e. “999”), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
Your Plugins section will now be reduced in size with a ’numbered pages’ feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Search” feature …
WordPress displays information about plugins in different backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (inactive vs. active and outdated vs up-to-date) …
Plugins that require upgrading show the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin] available” …
Select the plugin that you want to update and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides 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 updating, or refer to the section below if you have several plugins that are out-of-date and would like to upgrade them all at the same time.
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Now that you know how to upgrade plugins one at a time, let’s show you how to bulk-upgrade WP plugins.
How To Update Many Plugins Simultaneously
To upgrade multiple plugins at the same time using the automatic update feature, go to the “Plugins” page and click on the Update Available 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 upgrade by checking their individual boxes …
In the Bulk Actions drop-down menu above the table of plugins, select Update …
Click Apply …
Your selected plugins will begin to update automatically …
After all plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to your Plugins section, or choose another section of your dashboard …
Once your plugins are all up-to-date, the update reminders 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) …
All plugins are now up-to-date!
(When your site uses the latest version of all plugins, update notices no longer appear)
Now that you know how to automatically upgrade your inside your WP dashboard, let’s take a look at how to delete plugins from your site.
How To Delete Plugins
As part of smart WordPress site management, it’s a good idea to delete inactive plugins. This conserves resource usage and help to eliminate causes of some problems.
In this section, you will learn how to safely remove unused plugins from your WordPress blog or site.
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 remove a plugin, go to your admin menu and select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins page, 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 show an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, click on Deactivate before proceeding …
Next, click on Delete …
If you would like to review a list of all the files that will be deleted before proceeding any further, then click on the “Click to view entire list of files which will be deleted” link in the “Delete Plugin” page …
A complete list of files belonging to the plugin selected for removalwill be listed on your screen …
If you are positively sure about going ahead and deleting the selected plugin, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugin(s) will be deleted …
Bulk-Deleting WP Plugins
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins on your site, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be removed.
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 checkbox, or selecting the check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …
Next, select Deactivate from the Bulk Actions drop-down menu …
Click Apply …
Your 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 …
Click on the checkbox next to 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 ticked all the check boxes next to the plugins that you want deleted, specify Delete from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click the Apply button …
A list of all selected plugins will show up 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 sure that you want to proceed to the next step and delete all of the plugins listed …
All plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Useful Management Tools For WP Plugins
As well as the methods shown above, you can use Free and Paid WordPress plugins that help 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.
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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)