In another blog post, we provide an overview of what WP plugins are about and how you can use these to easily expand your site’s functionality.
You can read this article here:
In this tutorial you will learn why plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to automatically update and uninstall plugins from your site, and some tools to help you better manage your plugins if you currently run or manage multiple WordPress sites.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Some Of Your WordPress Plugins Need Regular Upgrading
The WordPress software is constantly updated (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in earlier software versions, as well as to improve existing features.
Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, you can expect to see at least some new new update notifications for plugins when new versions of WordPress are announced.
The reason for this, is because most WordPress plugins are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes code in the new WordPress version conflict with plugins that were built for a previous version. When this happens, there is a potential for issues 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 required). All you have to do on your end, is maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is really easy to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date and deleting old plugins you no longer use is part of good WordPress management and helps to avoid any potential problems or errors.
The WordPress tutorial below explains how to automatically update and delete WordPress plugins without requiring web coding knowledge or skills.
Upgrading And Deleting Plugins Inside Your WordPress Admin Dashboard – Tutorial
WordPress has a few methods of letting users know when plugins on their site need updating.
For example, you can tell immediately how many plugins need updating as soon as you log into your Site’s Dashboard just by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
In the example below, 9 WP plugins need updating …
You can also see how many plugins need updating from your WordPress Administration Toolbar (in the screenshot below, you can again see that 9 plugins should be updated) …
The Plugins screen (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also notifies you about plugins that need to be updated …
As well as providing information about which plugins have available updates, the Plugins screen provides links to the plugin download sites and gives you the option to update the plugins individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by learning how to upgrade individual plugins.
Upgrading Plugins Individually
We recommend making a complete backup of your website before making any upgrades to your blog or website.
In your dashboard menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” area will display in your browser. This table of plugins can be quite long depending on the number of plugins you have installed on your blog …
(WordPress Plugins Section)
Additional Info:
If you have too many plugins installed and would like to reduce the number of plugins displaying on your screen, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins screen and type in a smaller number of items per page (by default, all plugins display on the screen), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
Your Plugins section will now be made more manageable with a ’numbered pages’ feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Plugin Search” function …
You will see plugin information in different backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (inactive vs. active and out-of-date vs up-to-date) …
Plugins that require upgrading show the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin] available” …
Find the plugin that you want to update and click on the update now link …
WordPress has done away with the loading screen when updating plugins and streamlined the process, so that updating your plugins happens “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat the above process for all 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 upgrade them all at the same time.
***
Now that you know how to upgrade one plugin at a time, the next step is to learn how to bulk-upgrade WP plugins.
How To Bulk-Upgrade WP Plugins
To bulk-upgrade WordPress 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 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 their individual boxes …
In the Bulk Actions dropdown menu above your plugin list, choose Update …
Click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will begin updating …
After all plugin updates are finished, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to your Plugins section, or go to a different section of your dashboard …
Once all plugins are up-to-date, the update reminders 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) …
All plugins have now been updated to their latest versions!
(When your site uses the latest version of all plugins, notification icons no longer appear)
Now that you know how to update your plugins, let’s take a look at how to remove plugins from your site or blog.
Deleting Plugins
It’s a good idea to delete plugins that you no longer plan to use. This can decrease server resources and help you avoid causes of problems.
In this section, we show you how to safely delete unused plugins from your WordPress site or blog.
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 reinstall your site.
To delete a plugin, go to your WP admin menu and choose Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins area, locate the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is inactive.
Hint: Inactive plugins appear in a different background color 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 need to have a look at 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” section …
A complete list of files associated with the plugin that you are about to delete will be listed on your screen …
If you are absolutely certain about going ahead and deleting the selected plugin, then click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugins and related files will be removed from your WordPress installation …
How To Safely Delete Multiple Plugins Simultaneously
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, select Deactivate from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click Apply …
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 …
Select all of the plugins you want to delete by either placing a tick next to their check box, or click on the check box next to the Plugin column header to select and delete all inactive plugins …
Once you have selected all the plugins that you want to delete, specify Delete from the Bulk Actions drop-down menu …
Click Apply …
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 would like to proceed to the next step and delete all of the selected plugins …
The plugins will be deleted …
Managing WP Plugins
In addition to the methods shown above, you can install a number of third-party tools 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.
***
"I have used the tutorials to teach all of my clients and it has probably never been so easy for everyone to learn WordPress ... Now I don't need to buy all these very expensive video courses that often don't deliver what they promise." - Stefan Wendt, Internet Marketing Success Group