In another post, we provide an overview of what WordPress plugins are all about and how you can use plugins to easily extend your site’s capabilities.
To view this article, go here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping all WordPress plugins up-to-date, how to safely upgrade and remove plugins from your site, and useful tools to help you better manage your plugins.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Many Of Your WordPress Plugins Need Frequent Upgrading
WordPress frequently updates its software (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in earlier versions, and to improve existing features.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, there will typically be new updates for plugins every.
This is because most plugins for WordPress are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes the code in the new WordPress version conflict with plugins that were built for a previous version. When this happens, conflicts can 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 need to do on your end, is just maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is really simple, quick and easy to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date and removing old plugins you no longer use is an essential aspect of good WordPress management and helps to avoid potential errors or problems.
The WordPress tutorial below explains how to update and delete plugins without requiring web coding knowledge.
Upgrading And Deleting Plugins In WordPress – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress uses several ways to notify users when plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can see ‘at a glance’ how many plugins are out-of-date as soon as you log into your Administration site by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, nine plugins need updating …
You can also check how many plugins need to be updated from your WordPress Admin Toolbar (the screenshot below shows that 9 plugins need updating) …
The Plugins screen (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you how many plugins need updating …
As well as 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 plugins individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by learning how to upgrade one WordPress plugin at a time.
Updating Individual A Plugin
Always make a full backup of your website before making any changes to your website or blog.
From your main menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” screen. The table of plugins can run down your screen for some length, depending on how many plugins you have added to your blog …
(Plugins Page)
Additional Information:
If you have too many plugins installed and would like to reduce the number of plugins displayed on the page, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins area and enter a smaller number of items per page (by default, all plugins display on the page), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
Your Plugins section will now be reduced in size with a page scrolling feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Plugin Search” box …
You will see information about plugins in different color backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (inactive vs. active and outdated vs up-to-date) …
Plugins that need updating display the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin] available” …
Locate the plugin that needs to be updated and click on the update now link …
WordPress has done away with the loading screen when updating plugins and streamlined the process, so that the process of updating your plugins takes place “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat this process for any other plugins on your site that need to be updated, or refer to the section below if you have several plugins that are out-of-date and would like to upgrade all plugins in bulk.
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Now that you know how to update plugins individually, let’s show you how to upgrade a bunch of plugins simultaneously.
How To Upgrade Many Plugins
To update multiple plugins in a single operation directly inside your dashboard, 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 update by checking its box …
In the Bulk Actions drop-down menu above the list of plugins, choose Update …
And then click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will begin to update automatically …
Once all plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to your Plugins area, or choose a different section of your dashboard …
Once all plugins are up-to-date, any plugin alerts 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 have now been updated!
(When your plugins are up-to-date, update alerts disappear)
Now that you know how to automatically upgrade WordPress plugins, let’s take a look at how to uninstall plugins safely from your WordPress site.
Deleting Plugins
It’s a good idea to remove plugins that you no longer plan to use. This reduces resources on your server and helps to eliminate problems.
In this section, we show you how to uninstall unused plugins from your 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 dashboard menu and choose Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins page, find the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is deactivated.
Hint: Inactive plugins have 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 …
Click on Delete …
If you want to review a list of 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 …
The entire list of files associated with the plugin selected for removalwill be listed on your screen …
If you are positively sure about going ahead and deleting the plugin files, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugins and related files will be removed from your WordPress installation …
Bulk-Deleting WordPress Plugins
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins on your site, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be cleared.
Note: To delete any plugins that are currently 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) …
Once you have done this, specify Deactivate from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click Apply …
All selected plugins will be deactivated …
To delete all or some of the inactive plugins on your site, go to the “Plugins” page and click on the Inactive link in the Plugins menu …
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 ticked all the checkboxes next to the plugins that you want deleted, choose Delete from the Bulk Actions drop 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 sure that you would like to proceed to the next step and delete all of the selected plugins …
Your plugins will be deleted …
Managing WordPress Plugins – Tools
In addition to the methods shown above, you can use other 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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