In a previous article, we explain what plugins are and how you can use these to add new features or functionality to your blog with no coding skills required.
You can read the article here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping all WordPress plugins up-to-date, how to automatically upgrade and uninstall plugins, and discover useful plugin management tips.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Some WordPress Plugins Need To Be Regularly Upgraded
WordPress regularly updates its software (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in older releases, as well as 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 WordPress plugins when new WordPress versions are released.
This is because most WordPress plugins are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes the 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 problems to sometimes develop.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are fairly proactive when it comes to making sure that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if needed). All you need to do on your end, is keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is really simple to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date and removing old plugins you no longer need is an essential aspect of good WordPress management and helps to avoid potential conflicts or errors.
The tutorial below explains how to upgrade and delete plugins safely from your WP dashboard without editing web code.
How To Automatically Update And Delete Plugins – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress provides a few methods of letting users know when plugins on their blog need to be updated.
For example, you can instantly see how many plugins need to be updated as soon as you log into your Admin area just by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
In the screenshot below, nine WP plugins have older versions that need to be updated …
You can also check how many plugins need updating from your WordPress Admin Toolbar (as shown below, nine plugins have to be updated) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also lets you know which plugins need to be updated …
As well as providing information about which plugins have updates available, the Plugins screen provides links to the plugin developer pages and gives you the option to update your plugin instantly …
Let’s start by showing you how to update plugins individually.
How To Upgrade WordPress Plugins One At A Time
Always make a backup of your site files and database before updating your website or blog.
In your dashboard menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” page will display in your browser. The table of plugins can be quite long depending on how many plugins you have added to your site …
(Plugins Page)
Tips:
If you have too many plugins and would like to make this section more manageable, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins area and enter a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show up on the page 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 “Plugin Search” function …
WordPress displays plugin information in different color backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (inactive vs. active and out-of-date vs up-to-date) …
Plugins that require updating have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Insert Plugin Name] available” …
Select the plugin that needs to be updated and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides simple plugin updating, so that updating your plugins takes place with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat this process for any other plugins on your site that need updating, or refer to 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 update plugins individually, it’s time to learn how to bulk-upgrade WP plugins.
How To Upgrade Several Plugins Simultaneously
To update multiple WP plugins in one go from your admin area, go to the “Plugins” area 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 its box …
In the Bulk Actions dropdown menu above the list of plugins, choose Update …
Click Apply …
Your selected plugins will automatically begin to update …
After all plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to your Plugins area, or visit 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) …
You have updated all plugins on your site to their latest version!
(When your plugins are up-to-date, update alerts no longer appear)
Now that you know how to automatically update inside your dashboard, let’s show you how to delete plugins from your WordPress blog or website.
How To Safely Delete Plugins
At times, you may choose to remove WordPress plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This can decrease resources on your server and also help to reduce problems.
In this section, you will learn how to remove unused plugins from your site or blog.
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 remove a plugin, go to your dashboard menu and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins section, find the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is deactivated.
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 …
Next, 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” screen …
The entire list of files associated with the plugin selected for deletionwill be listed on your screen …
If you are absolutely certain about going ahead and deleting these plugin, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugin(s) will be deleted from your server …
Bulk-Deleting WordPress Plugins
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be cleared.
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) …
Once you have done this, specify Deactivate from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click the Apply button …
Your 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 on the main menu …
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 ticked all the check boxes next to the plugins that you want deleted, select Delete from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click Apply …
A list of all selected plugins will show up in the Delete Plugins area. 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 certain that you want to go ahead and delete all of the selected plugins …
All plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Plugin Management – WordPress Tools
In addition to the methods shown above, you can install 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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