In a previous post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use plugins to add new features or functionality to your blog without editing code.
To read the article, go here:
In this tutorial you will learn why plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to automatically upgrade and delete plugins, and some plugin management tips.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Some Of Your Plugins Need Upgrading
The WordPress software is constantly updated (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in earlier software versions, and to improve existing features.
Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, there will typically be new updates for WordPress plugins whenever WordPress releases an updated version.
This is because most WordPress plugins are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes code or features in the newly-released WordPress version conflict with plugins that were developed and tested with a previous version. Whenever this happens, there is a potential for conflicts to sometimes occur.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are very proactive when it comes to making sure that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if this is needed). All you need to do on your end, is simply keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is very simple to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins regularly updated and removing old plugins you no longer need is part of good WordPress management and helps to avoid errors and problems.
The WordPress tutorial below explains how to update and delete plugins safely without touching web code.
How To Upgrade And Delete Plugins In WordPress – Tutorial
WordPress has a few ways to let users know when plugins on their blog need updating.
For example, you can tell immediately how many plugins are out-of-date as soon as you log into your WordPress Dashboard by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, you can see that 9 WP plugins are out of date and need to be updated …
You can also view how many plugins need to be updated from your WordPress Admin Toolbar (as shown below, several plugins need updating) …
The Plugins screen (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also provides information about plugins that need updating …
In addition to 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 plugins individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by showing you how to update individual plugins.
How To Update Plugins One At A Time
We strongly recommend performing a complete backup of your data and files before making any changes to your website.
In your WP admin menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” page will display in your browser. The list of plugins can run down your page for a while, depending on how many plugins you have installed in your blog …
(The WordPress Plugins Screen)
Tips:
If you have too many plugins installed and would like to reduce the number of plugins showing on your screen, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins area and type in a smaller number of items per page (by default, all plugins display on the page), 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 Plugins” feature …
WordPress displays plugin information in different backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (inactive vs. active and up-to-date vs. out-of-date) …
Plugins in need of updating 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 has done away with the loading screen when updating plugins and streamlined the plugin updating process, so that the process of 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 see the section below if you have many plugins that are out-of-date and would like to upgrade them all in one simple operation.
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Now that you know how to upgrade one plugin at a time, it’s time to learn how to upgrade multiple WordPress plugins simultaneously.
How To Bulk-Upgrade Plugins
To bulk-update plugins using the automatic upgrading 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 checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to update by checking their individual boxes …
In the Bulk Actions drop down menu at the top of the page, choose Update …
Click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will automatically begin to update …
Once all plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to the Plugins screen, or select another option from the admin menu …
Once your plugins are all up-to-date, any plugin alerts 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 alerts disappear)
Now that you know how to update your plugins, it’s time to learn how to remove plugins from your blog or website.
Deleting WordPress Plugins
As part of smart WordPress management, it’s a good idea to uninstall plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This conserves resource usage and eliminates problems.
In this section, you will learn how to safely delete unused plugins from your site or blog.
We strongly recommend creating 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 reinstall your site.
To remove a plugin, go to your main menu and choose Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins screen, find the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is inactive.
Hint: Inactive plugins have a different background color than active plugins and display an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, click on Deactivate before proceeding …
Next, click Delete …
If you want to browse 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” page …
The entire list of files associated with the plugin selected for deletionwill display on your screen …
If you are positively sure about going ahead and deleting the selected plugin files, just click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugins and related files will be deleted …
Deleting Several WordPress Plugins In Bulk
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be removed.
Note: To delete any plugins that are currently 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) …
Next, 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” area and click on the Inactive link in the Plugins menu …
Tick the check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to remove by checking their individual boxes …
Once you have ticked all the check boxes next to the plugins that you want deleted, select Delete from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click the Apply button …
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 go ahead and delete all of the plugins listed …
The plugins will be deleted …
Useful Management Tools For WordPress Plugins
As well as the methods shown above, you can use a range of third-party tools that help you manage your plugins.
PLUGIN CENTRAL
Plugin Central is a Free WordPress plugin that helps you manage your plugins by allowing you to install plugins directly, displays the status of plugins in need of update in your Admin area and also allows you to update many plugins at once with a single click …
For more details about using this plugin, go here:
Managing WordPress Plugins On Multiple Sites
When plugin developers release a new plugin update, the best practice is to update that plugin right away.
What if you have multiple WordPress sites using the same plugin? Typically, you would need to login to your sites one by one and then update the plugin manually from that site’s own WP admin dashboard. With multiple sites, updating the same plugin(s) can take quite a while to complete!
WordPress Power User Tip: If you own multiple WordPress sites or blogs, you can install, update or delete plugins on multiple sites automatically and simultaneously using various WordPress management tools.
Here are just a few great WordPress management tools that are worth knowing about:
Jetpack
Jetpack is a versatile plugin for WordPress that offers users a wide range of features, allowing self-hosted WordPress site owners to benefit from WordPress.com’s infrastructure and take advantage of stats reporting, easy social sharing, and so much more.
(Jetpack lets you access a range of powerful WordPress features)
One of these features is “Manage”.
Jetpack Manage allows you to manage your WordPress sites from a single dashboard on WordPress.com.
With Manage, you can update plugins, set plugins to automatically update, and activate or deactivate plugins on a per-site basis or in bulk, whether you’re on your PC, tablet, or smart phone.
Visit this site for more information about the plugin:
ManageWP – WordPress Management Tool
(ManageWP is a widely used management tool for multiple WordPress sites)
ManageWP lets you manage all your WordPress sites from one central location, including upgrades, backups, security and more. This tool features easy and intuitive one-click management and instant login to your sites.
Go here for more information about the plugin:
WP Pipeline
(With WP Pipeline, you can update all of your WordPress sites, plugins and themes from a single dashboard)
WP Pipeline is very similar to ManageWP, but you only have to pay once to access the software. It lets you manage your entire online WordPress presence and perform multiple upgrades from one central WordPress installation.
To learn more about using the plugin, go here:
Congratulations! Now you know how to upgrade and uninstall WordPress plugins.
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