In another blog post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use these to easily add new features to your website without editing code.
You can read this article here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping WordPress plugins up-to-date, how to automatically upgrade and uninstall your WordPress plugins, and some tips to help you better manage your plugins if you plan to manage multiple WordPress sites or blogs.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Your Plugins Need To Be Upgraded
New versions of WordPress are regularly released (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in older releases, as well as to improve existing features.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, there will typically be new new update notices for WordPress plugins each time a new version of WordPress is released.
This is because most WordPress plugins are created by third-party developers, so sometimes code in the new WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were created and tested to work 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 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 simply maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is very quick, simple and easy to do.
Keeping your plugins regularly updated and deleting old plugins you no longer need is part of good WordPress management and helps to avoid errors and conflicts.
The tutorial below explains how to automatically update and delete plugins with no web programming skills or knowledge needed.
Upgrading And Deleting Plugins Safely – Tutorial
WordPress uses a number of different ways to let you know when your plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can see ‘at a glance’ how many plugins need updating as soon as you log into your Admin area 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 see how many plugins need to be updated from your WordPress Toolbar (in the example below, you can again see that nine plugins require updating) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also lets you know which plugins need updating …
As well as providing information about plugins that have updates available, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin download sites and gives you the option to update your plugins instantly …
Let’s start by learning how to update WordPress plugins individually.
How To Update Individual WordPress Plugins
We recommend making a full backup of your site files and database before updating your website.
From your WP admin menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” page. The table of plugins can run down your page for a while, depending on the number of plugins you have installed in your site …
(WordPress Plugins Page)
Additional 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 (all plugins show on the screen by default), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
Your Plugins section 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 Installed Plugins” feature …
WordPress displays plugin information in different backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (active vs. inactive and out-of-date vs up-to-date) …
Plugins in need of upgrading have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Insert Plugin Name] available” …
Find the plugin that needs updating and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides streamlined plugin updates, so that 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 updating, or see the section below if you have many plugins that are out-of-date and would like to upgrade all plugins in bulk.
***
Now that you know how to upgrade one plugin at a time, let’s show you how to upgrade several WP plugins simultaneously.
Bulk-Updating WP Plugins
To update multiple WordPress plugins in one go 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 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 at the top of the page, choose Update …
And then click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will begin the update process …
After your plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to your Plugins screen, or select another 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” messages no longer display) …
You have updated all plugins on your site to their latest version!
(When plugins on your site are up-to-date, notification icons disappear)
Now that you know how to automatically upgrade plugins, let’s show you how to safely delete plugins safely from your blog or website.
How To Safely Delete WP Plugins
It’s a good idea to uninstall plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This helps to conserve resource usage and help you avoid potential problems.
In this section, we show you how to deactivate and delete unused plugins from your 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 delete a plugin, go to your WP admin menu and choose Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins section, find the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is inactive.
Hint: Inactive plugins appear in a different colored background than active plugins and show an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, then click on Deactivate before proceeding with your plugin deletion …
Next, 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” screen …
A complete list of files belonging to the plugin that you are about to remove will be listed on your screen …
If you are 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 deleted …
How To Delete Multiple WP Plugins In Bulk
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 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 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 …
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 on the main menu …
Click on the check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to delete by checking their individual boxes …
Once you have selected all of the plugins that you want deleted, select Delete from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click the Apply button …
A list of all selected plugins will show up 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 delete all of the selected plugins …
Your plugins will be deleted …
Managing Plugins
In addition to the methods shown above, you can use other WordPress plugins to 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.
***
"Your training is the best in the world! It is simple, yet detailed, direct, understandable, memorable, and complete." Andrea Adams, FinancialJourney.org