In a previous post, we provide an overview of what WordPress plugins are all about and how you can use plugins to easily add new features to your site without touching code.
You can read the article here:
In this tutorial you will learn why WordPress plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to easily upgrade and uninstall plugins, and discover useful plugin management tips.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Some Of Your Plugins Need Updating
New versions of WordPress are regularly released (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in earlier software releases, and to improve existing features or introduce new ones.
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 every.
This is because most plugins for WordPress are created by external developers, so sometimes code in the newly-released WordPress version conflict with plugins that were created and tested to work with a previous version. Whenever this happens, there is a potential for conflicts 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 needed). All you have to do on your end, is maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is really easy and simple to do.
Keeping your plugins regularly updated and removing old plugins you no longer need is an essential aspect of good WordPress management and helps to avoid any potential problems or errors.
The tutorial below explains how to update and delete plugins safely with no web coding skills or knowledge needed.
How To Update And Delete Plugins From The WordPress Dashboard – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress uses a number of different ways to let you know when plugins on your site need updating.
For example, you can see how many plugins need updating as soon as you log into your Admin area by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, nine WordPress plugins have older versions that need updating …
You can also view how many plugins need to be updated from your WP Notification Toolbar (as shown below, several plugins should be updated) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you how many plugins need updating …
As well as providing information about plugins that have available updates, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin developer sites and gives you the option to update your plugin instantly …
Let’s start by learning how to upgrade one plugin at a time.
How To Upgrade WordPress Plugins One At A Time
We recommend performing a full backup of your site files and database before updating your blog or website.
In your WP admin menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” page. The table of plugins can go down your screen for some length, depending on the number of plugins you have added to your site …
(The WordPress Plugins Page)
Useful Information:
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 type in a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show up on the page by default), then click Apply …
Your Plugins page 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” field …
WordPress displays information about plugins in different backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (active vs. inactive and outdated vs up-to-date) …
Plugins in need of upgrading have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Insert Plugin Name] available” …
Select the plugin that needs updating and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides fast plugin updating, so that the process of updating your plugins takes place with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat the above process for any other plugins on your site that need to be updated, or refer to the section below if you have a number of plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update them all in one simple operation.
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Now that you know how to update one WP plugin at a time, let’s show you how to update many plugins simultaneously.
How To Bulk-Update Plugins
To bulk-upgrade WordPress plugins directly inside your dashboard, go to the “Plugins” section and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Click on the check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to upgrade by checking their individual boxes …
In the Bulk Actions pull-down menu above the table of plugins, select Update …
And then click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will begin the update process …
Once your plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to your Plugins area, or choose another option from the WordPress admin menu …
Once your plugins are all 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” messages no longer display) …
All plugins have now been updated to their latest versions!
(When your site or blog uses the latest version of all plugins, update alerts disappear)
Now that you know how to automatically update WP plugins, let’s take a look at how to delete plugins safely from your WordPress site.
Deleting Plugins
At times, you may choose to delete plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This reduces resource usage and will help you avoid causes of some problems.
In this section, we show you how to safely remove unused plugins from your WordPress site.
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 restore your site.
To remove a plugin, go to your main menu and select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins area, locate the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is inactive.
Hint: Inactive plugins are listed in a different colored background than active plugins and display an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, then click on Deactivate before going any further …
Once you have deactivated the plugin, click Delete …
If you would like 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 …
All files belonging to the plugin selected for removalwill be listed on your screen …
If you are certain that you want to proceed and delete the selected plugin, just click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugin(s) will be removed from your server …
How To Safely Delete Multiple WP Plugins Simultaneously
You can delete all inactive plugins at once, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be deleted.
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 check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …
Next, choose Deactivate from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click Apply …
Your selected plugins will be deactivated …
Once you have deactivated these 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 checkbox, or click on the checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select and delete all inactive plugins …
Once you have selected all of the plugins that you want to delete, 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 absolutely sure that you would like to go ahead and remove all of the selected plugins …
The plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Useful Tools For Managing WordPress Plugins
As well as the methods shown above, you can install a range of tools that help you manage your WordPress plugins.
PLUGIN CENTRAL
Plugin Central is a Free plugin that helps to improve the management of your plugins with options that let you install plugins directly, displays the status of plugins in need of update in the Admin area and lets you update many plugins at once in one click …
To learn more about this plugin, visit the plugin site:
Managing WordPress Plugins On Multiple Sites
As discussed earlier, when a plugin update gets released, the best practice is to update that plugin right away.
What if you have multiple sites with the same plugin installed? Typically, you would have to login to your sites one by one and then go through the plugin update process from that site’s own WordPress dashboard. If you plan to run multiple sites, this process can take quite some time!
WordPress Power User Tip: If you own or manage multiple WordPress sites or blogs, you can install, upgrade or remove plugins on all of your sites automatically and simultaneously using various WordPress management tools.
Here are just a few great WordPress management tools you should look at:
Jetpack Manage
Jetpack is a single WordPress plugin that provides users with a wide range of added functionality, allowing self-hosted WordPress site users to benefit from WordPress.com’s infrastructure and take advantage of robust stats, automated social sharing, and a host of other great features.
(The Jetpack Plugin lets you access a range of powerful WordPress.com features)
One of these features is “Manage”.
Jetpack Manage lets you manage multiple self-hosted WordPress sites and WordPress.com sites from one simple 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 all at once, whether you’re on your PC, tablet, or smart device.
Visit this site to download and use the plugin:
ManageWP
(ManageWP is a leading WordPress management tool for multiple WP sites)
ManageWP lets you easily manage all of your WordPress sites from one place, including upgrades, backups, security and more. The application features easy one-click management and instant login to your sites.
To download and use this plugin, go here:
WP Pipeline – Upgrade All Your Plugins From One Central Location
(With WP Pipeline, you can update all of your WordPress sites, plugins and themes from a single WP installation)
WP Pipeline works in a similar way to ManageWP, but has a one-time license fee instead of recurring payments. It lets you manage your entire portfolio of WordPress sites and perform multiple upgrades from one central location.
Visit this site for more information about using this plugin:
Congratulations! Now you know how to update and delete plugins safely without requiring web coding knowledge.
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"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum