In a previous post, we provide a detailed explanation of what WP plugins are about and how you can use these to easily add new features and functionality to your website with no technical skills required.
You can read the article here:
In this tutorial you will learn why WordPress plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to safely upgrade and delete your WordPress plugins, and discover useful tools to help you better manage your plugins if you currently own or manage multiple WordPress sites.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Your Plugins Need Upgrading
New WordPress versions are regularly released (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in older versions, and to improve existing features or introduce new functionality to WordPress users.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, there will typically be new new update notices for WordPress plugins whenever WordPress distributes an updated version.
This is because most WordPress plugins are created by third-party developers, so sometimes the code in the new WordPress version conflict with plugins that were developed and tested with a previous version. When this happens, problems can sometimes develop.
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 required). All you have to do as a website owner, is simply maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is very easy and simple to do.
Keeping your plugins up-to-date and deleting old plugins you no longer need is an essential aspect of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid errors and conflicts.
The step-by-step tutorial below explains how to automatically upgrade and delete plugins from your dashboard without requiring web programming skills or knowledge.
How To Update And Delete Plugins Safely In Your Dashboard – Tutorial
WordPress provides a few ways of letting you know when your plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can see how many plugins are out-of-date as soon as you log into your Admin area by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
In the screenshot below, nine plugins have older versions that need updating …
You can also view how many plugins need updating from your WordPress Admin Toolbar (as shown below, several plugins require updating) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also notifies you about plugins that need updating …
As well as providing information about plugins that have available updates, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin developer pages and gives you the option to update the plugin individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by learning how to update one plugin at a time.
Upgrading WordPress Plugins Individually
We strongly recommend making a backup of your data and files before making any upgrades to your website.
From your admin menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” area will display in your browser. The table of plugins can be quite long depending on the number of plugins you have added to your blog …
(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 enter a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show on the page by default, i.e. “999”), then click Apply …
Your Plugins page will now be reduced in size with a page scrolling feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Plugin Search” box …
WordPress displays information about plugins in different backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (inactive vs. active and up-to-date vs. outdated) …
Plugins in need of updating display the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin Name] available” …
Locate the plugin that you want to update 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 takes place “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat the above process for any other plugins on your site that need updating, or see the section below if you have several plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update them all at the same time.
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Now that you know how to upgrade plugins individually, it’s time to learn how to update a bunch of WP plugins simultaneously.
Bulk-Updating WordPress Plugins
To upgrade multiple plugins simultaneously from your admin area, go to the “Plugins” screen and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Tick the check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to upgrade by checking its box …
In the Bulk Actions drop-down menu at the top of the page, select 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 return to your Plugins section, or select another section of your dashboard …
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” messages no longer display) …
All plugins are now up-to-date!
(When your plugins are all up-to-date, update notices no longer appear)
Now that you know how to automatically update plugins, let’s show you how to remove plugins safely from your site.
Deleting WordPress 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 to conserve server resources and help to eliminate causes of problems.
In this section, you will learn how to remove unused plugins from your WordPress blog or 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 WP admin menu and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins screen, locate the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is deactivated.
Hint: Inactive plugins have 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 …
Click Delete …
If you need to have a look at 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” section …
The entire list of files belonging to the plugin that you are about to remove will display on your screen …
If you are absolutely certain about going ahead and deleting these plugin, then click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugin(s) will be deleted from your server …
Bulk-Deleting Plugins
You can delete all inactive plugins at once, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be removed.
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 checkbox, 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 drop-down menu …
Click the Apply button …
All selected plugins will be deactivated …
To delete all or some of the inactive plugins, go to the “Plugins” page and click on the Inactive link on the main menu …
Tick the checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to delete by checking its box …
Once you have ticked all the check boxes next to the plugins that you want deleted, choose Delete from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click Apply …
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 delete all of the plugins listed …
The plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
WordPress Tools For Managing Plugins
As well as the methods shown above, you can use a range of third-party tools that help you manage your WordPress plugins.
PLUGIN CENTRAL
Plugin Central improves the management of your plugins with features that let you install plugins directly, displays the status of plugins in need of update on the Dashboard and also allows you to update multiple plugins with one click …
To learn more about this plugin, go here:
Managing WordPress Plugins On Multiple Sites
Whenever a plugin update is released, the best practice is to update that plugin as soon as possible.
What if you run multiple WordPress sites with the same plugin installed? One option, is to login to every site and then update the plugin from that site’s own dashboard. With multiple sites, this process can take quite a while!
WordPress Power User Tip: If you own or manage multiple WordPress sites or blogs, you can install, upgrade or delete plugins on multiple sites automatically and simultaneously using various WordPress management tools.
Below are a couple of WordPress management tools that are worth knowing about:
Jetpack
Jetpack is a versatile plugin for WordPress that offers users a powerful range of added functionality, allowing self-hosted WordPress site users to benefit from WordPress.com’s infrastructure and take advantage of stats reporting, easy social sharing, and a whole lot more.
(Jetpack gives you access to range of powerful WordPress features)
One of these features is “Jetpack Manage”.
Jetpack Manage lets you manage your WordPress sites and plugins from a central dashboard.
With Manage, you can upgrade plugins, set plugins to update automatically, and activate or deactivate plugins on a site-by-site basis or all at once, whether you’re on your PC, tablet, or smart device.
Go here to download and use the plugin:
ManageWP.com – Multiple WordPress Site Management Software
(ManageWP is a very popular WordPress management tool for multiple WP sites)
ManageWP helps you manage all of your sites from one dashboard, including updates, backups, security and more. This tool features easy and intuitive one-click updates and instant login to all of your sites.
For more information about the plugin, go here:
WP Pipeline.com
(With WP Pipeline, you can update all of your WordPress sites, plugins and themes from a central location)
WP Pipeline works in a similar way to ManageWP, but you only have to pay once to access the software. It lets you control and organize your entire portfolio of WordPress sites and perform multiple upgrades from a single location.
To learn more about using the plugin, go here:
Congratulations! Now you know how to update and delete plugins in WordPress without editing web code.
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