Update WordPress plugins

Updated on November 27th, 2024

Plugins are third-party extensions that enhance the basic functionality of your WordPress® site, providing extra features like photo galleries, contact forms, SEO management, social media integrations, and more.¹

Out-of-date plugins can degrade the security and performance of your site, so it’s best practice to keep them updated. If you’ve never updated a plugin before, don’t worry – this guide will walk you through the process step by step.

Note

Tired of updating plugins manually? Flywheel can update your plugins for you with our Managed Plugin Updates Add-on! Learn more.

Update plugins on your site

First, we recommend creating a backup of your site. Flywheel backs up your site automatically every 24 hours, but you can create backups yourself at any time.
Next, log into your WordPress site. You can click the WP Admin button on your site’s Flywheel dashboard or navigate to your site’s login page directly (e.g. mysite.com/wp-admin).
Once you’ve logged in, click the Plugins area on the left sidebar. The red icon indicates there are plugins with updates available.
The plugins page lists all plugins installed on the site. Plugins with an available update will display a yellow banner.
Click update now to update the plugin. (Hot tip: you can also use the Bulk actions menu to update multiple plugins at once.)
You did it, your plugin is now up to date!
Time for testing! We recommend loading up a few pages of your site each time you update plugins. If something looks off, no worries, you can quickly restore your backup! (In cases like this, you should reach out to the plugin developer for more information on the issue).