In a previous article, we explain what plugins are and how you can use plugins to easily enhance your website’s functionality.
You can view this article here:
In this tutorial you will learn why WordPress plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to safely upgrade and delete plugins, and some great tools to help you better manage your plugins if you plan to run multiple WordPress sites.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Your 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 earlier software versions, and 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 WordPress plugins every.
The reason for this, is because most WordPress plugins are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes code in the newly-released WordPress version conflict with plugins that were created and tested to work with a previous version. When this happens, there is a potential for problems to sometimes develop.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are quite 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 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 use is part of good WordPress management and helps to avoid potential problems and errors.
The tutorial below explains how to automatically update and delete plugins without touching web code.
How To Automatically Update And Delete Plugins From The Dashboard – Tutorial
WordPress provides a few methods to alert you when plugins need updating.
For example, you can see ‘at a glance’ how many plugins are out-of-date as soon as you log into your Site’s Dashboard by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
In the example below, 9 WordPress plugins have older versions that need to be updated …
You can also check how many plugins need updating from your WP Toolbar (in the example below, you can see how many plugins should be updated) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also provides information about plugins that need to be updated …
In addition to providing information about which plugins have available updates, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin developer pages and gives you the option to update your plugins with one-click …
Let’s start by showing you how to upgrade one WP plugin at a time.
Updating Plugins One At A Time
Always make a complete backup of your data and files before upgrading your blog or website.
In your main menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” section. This page can be quite lengthy depending on the number of plugins you have installed on your blog …
(The WordPress Plugins Section)
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 screen and type in a smaller number of items per page (by default, all plugins display on the page), then click Apply …
Your Plugins page will now be made more manageable with a page scrolling 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 color backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (active vs. inactive and outdated vs up-to-date) …
Plugins that need upgrading show the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin Name] available” …
Find the plugin that needs updating 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 happens 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 several plugins that are out-of-date and would like to upgrade all plugins at once.
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Now that you know how to upgrade one WP plugin at a time, the next step is to learn how to upgrade many plugins simultaneously.
How To Update Many WP Plugins Simultaneously
To bulk-upgrade WP plugins simultaneously 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 …
Tick the check box in 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 your plugin list, choose Update …
Click Apply …
Your selected plugins will begin updating …
After the update process has been completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to the Plugins area, or go to a different section of your dashboard …
Once your plugins are all up-to-date, the update reminders 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 upgraded!
(When your site uses the latest version of all plugins, update icons no longer appear)
Now that you know how to upgrade WP plugins, it’s time to learn how to delete plugins from your site or blog.
How To Safely Remove Plugins
It’s a good idea to uninstall plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This can help reduce resources on your server and also help to eliminate potential problems.
In this section, we show you how to safely remove unused plugins from your blog or site.
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 restore your site.
To delete a plugin, go to your WP admin menu and select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins screen, locate the plugin you want to remove 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, then click on Deactivate before continuing with your plugin deletion …
Once you have deactivated the plugin, click Delete …
If you want to review a list of all the files that will be deleted before going ahead, 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 certain that you want to go ahead and delete the plugin, just click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugin(s) will be deleted …
How To Safely Delete Multiple WordPress Plugins At Once
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 presently 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 check box, 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 pull-down menu …
Click the Apply button …
Your selected plugins will be deactivated …
To delete all or some of the inactive plugins, go to the “Plugins” screen and click on the Inactive link in the Plugins menu …
Click on the checkbox in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to delete by checking its box …
Once you have selected all the plugins that you want to delete, select Delete from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click the Apply button …
A list of all selected plugins will be displayed 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 proceed to the next step and remove all of the plugins listed …
Your selected plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Managing WP Plugins – WordPress Tools
As well as the methods shown above, you can use a range of 3rd-party tools that help 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.
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