In another post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use plugins to easily add new features to your website or blog without editing code.
To view this article, go here:
In this tutorial you will learn why plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to update and delete plugins from your site, and practical tips to help you better manage your plugins.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Many WordPress Plugins Need Updating
New WordPress versions are constantly being released (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in earlier 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 updates for WordPress plugins each time a new version of WordPress is made available.
The reason for this, is because most plugins for WordPress are created by external developers, so sometimes the code in the new WordPress version conflicts 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 fairly proactive when it comes to ensuring that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if required). All you need to do on your end, is just keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is really quick, simple and easy 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 problems and errors.
The tutorial below explains how to automatically upgrade and delete plugins safely with no web programming knowledge or skills needed.
Updating And Deleting Plugins Inside The Dashboard – Tutorial
WordPress provides a few ways to let you know when plugins on your blog need updating.
For example, you can see ‘at a glance’ how many plugins are out-of-date from your Administration area by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, nine plugins have older versions that need to be updated …
You can also view how many plugins need to be updated from your WP Administration Toolbar (the example below shows that a number of plugins should be updated) …
The Plugins screen (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you what plugins need to be updated …
In addition to providing information about plugins that have updates available, the Plugins page provides links to the plugin developer sites and gives you the option to update your plugins instantly …
Let’s start by showing you how to upgrade one WP plugin at a time.
Update WordPress Plugins One At A Time
We recommend performing a complete backup of your site files and database before making any changes to your website or blog.
In your admin menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” screen. This page can be quite long depending on how many plugins you have added to your site …
(Plugins Page)
Notes:
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 area and enter a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show on the page by default), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
Your Plugins area 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 plugin information in different backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (active vs. inactive and outdated vs up-to-date) …
Plugins that require updating show the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin Name] available” …
Select the plugin that needs to be updated 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 “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat the above process for any other plugins on your site that need to be updated, or see the section below if you have many plugins that are out-of-date and would like to upgrade them all in bulk.
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Now that you know how to upgrade individual WP plugins, let’s show you how to update several WordPress plugins simultaneously.
How To Bulk-Update Plugins
To bulk-update plugins from your admin area, go to the “Plugins” section and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Click the checkbox in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to upgrade by checking their individual boxes …
In the Bulk Actions drop-down menu at the top of the page, choose Update …
And then 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 select another option from the main 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” notices no longer display) …
You have updated all plugins on your site to their latest version!
(When your plugins are up-to-date, update notices no longer show)
Now that you know how to automatically update in your dashboard, it’s time to learn how to safely remove plugins safely from your WordPress blog or website.
Deleting Plugins
At times, you may decide to remove WP plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This can help conserve resource usage and also help to minimize problems.
In this section, you will learn how to safely delete 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 delete a plugin, go to your dashboard menu and choose Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins page, locate the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is deactivated.
Hint: Inactive plugins are listed in 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 …
Click Delete …
If you need to browse all the files that will be deleted before going ahead with the next step, 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 positively sure that you want to proceed and delete these plugin files, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugin(s) will be removed from your server …
How To Safely Bulk-Delete Plugins
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be removed.
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 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 drop-down menu …
Click Apply …
All 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 ticked all the check boxes next to the plugins that you want to delete, specify 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 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 sure that you would like to go ahead and remove all of the selected plugins …
Your selected plugins will be deleted …
WordPress Plugin Management – Tools
In addition to the methods shown above, you can install Free and Premium WordPress plugins to manage your plugins.
PLUGIN CENTRAL
Plugin Central is a Free WordPress plugin that improves the management of your plugins by allowing you to install plugins directly, displays the status of plugins in need of update in the Admin area and lets you update many plugins at once with a single mouse-click …
For more details about using this plugin, visit the plugin site:
Managing WordPress Plugins On Multiple Sites
As discussed earlier, when plugin developers release a new plugin update, the best practice is to upgrde that plugin as soon as possible.
What if you run multiple WordPress sites using the same plugin? Typically, you would need to login to each site individually and then update the plugin manually from that site’s own WP admin dashboard. With multiple sites, this process can take quite a while!
WordPress Power User Tip: If you own a number of WordPress sites, you can install, upgrade and remove plugins on multiple sites automatically and simultaneously using various WordPress management tools.
Here are a couple of WordPress management tools you can check out:
Jetpack By WordPress.com
The Jetpack plugin is a multifunctional WordPress plugin that provides users with a powerful range of added functionality, allowing self-hosted WordPress site owners to benefit from WordPress.com’s infrastructure and take advantage of robust stats, easy social sharing, and many other great features.
(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 from a central interface.
With Manage, you can update plugins, set plugins to update automatically, and activate or deactivate plugins on a per-site basis or all at once, whether you’re on your computer, tablet, or mobile device.
Go here to download and use the plugin:
ManageWP.com
(ManageWP is a very popular WordPress management tool for multiple WP sites)
ManageWP lets you easily manage all of your sites from one place, including updates, backups, security and more. This application features easy one-click upgrades and instant login access to all of your sites.
To download and use this plugin, visit this site:
WP Pipeline – WordPress Mass Control Plugin
(With WP Pipeline, you can update all of your WordPress sites, plugins and themes from a single WP installation)
WP Pipeline is very similar to ManageWP, but has a one-time license fee instead of recurring payments. It lets you control and organize your entire online WordPress presence and perform multiple updates from a single location.
Visit this site to learn more about using this plugin:
Congratulations! Now you know how to update and safely remove your plugins in WordPress.
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