How to Upgrade a WordPress Plugin

I’ve already described how to install a WordPress plugin from within WordPress.

Now that you have your plugins installed and happily plugging along, it won’t be long before a little red circle with a white number in it appears next to the word “Plugins” in your WordPress navigation (as shown in Figure 1). Perhaps it’s already appeared for you.

Don’t be alarmed. This is just WordPress helpfully notifying you that one of your installed plugins has a new version available, and that you can upgrade if you wish.

Figure 1: WordPress helpfully notifies you when a new version of a plugin is available.

You don’t have to rush to install upgrades the instant you’re notified, but since new upgrades contain new features and sometimes even security fixes, I generally advise upgrading before too long. Sometimes I wait a few days and batch-upgrade (yes, I have a lot of plugins).

It’s even easier than installing the plugin in the first place. Here’s how to do it:

Step 1: Go to your Manage Plugin screen to see which plugins are available for upgrade

Plugins with new versions available will be (very subtly) highlighted with a pinkish color. There will also be two useful links: “View version Details” (which takes you to the plugin’s home page so you can see what will be different about the upgrade) and “Upgrade automatically” (which is what you want to click when you’re ready to begin the upgrade).

Figure 2: Plugins with new available versions are highlighted and include an "upgrade automatically" link.

Step 2. Click “Upgrade Automatically”

This immediately begins the upgrade process. You’ll see the Upgrade Plugin page shown in Figure 3. The status messages will appear one by one (usually in a matter of seconds). When you see “Plugin reactivated successfully,” that’s it, you’re done.

Figure 3: Upgrade status messages appear in order; when you see "Plugin reactivated successfully" you're done!

But what if it doesn’t work?

In rare cases, reinstallation or reactivation will fail. I’ve had this happen a couple of times. Instead of the success message, you get red letters telling you that plugin reactivation failed (and sometimes an incomprehensible reason or error code).

Again, don’t panic. The simplest thing to try is to wait five minutes and try again.

If that doesn’t work, try going to your Manage Plugin screen and uninstalling the plugin (click the small blue “delete” link underneath the plugin’s name).

Then start from scratch and install the plugin as if you’d never seen it before. This will install the latest version, as if you’d completed a successful upgrade.

This method has always worked for me (the few times I’ve had an upgrade fail). I hope it always works for you. But if you have questions, feel free to leave a comment here, or contact me.

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