In a separate blog post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use plugins to expand your website’s capabilities.
To view the article, go here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn why plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to easily upgrade and remove your WordPress plugins, and some great plugin management tools if you plan to run or manage multiple WordPress sites or blogs.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Many Of Your Plugins Need Upgrading
The WordPress software is regularly updated (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in previous versions, and to improve existing features.
Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, there will typically be new new update notices for plugins each time a new WordPress version is announced.
The reason for this, is because most plugins for WordPress are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes code in the new WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were developed and tested with a previous version. When this happens, there is a potential for issues to sometimes develop.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are quite proactive when it comes to ensuring that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if updating is needed). All you need to do on your end, is simply keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is very simple and easy to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date and deleting old plugins you no longer need is part of good WordPress management and helps to avoid problems or errors.
The step-by-step tutorial below explains how to automatically update and delete plugins in the WP admin dashboard without touching web code.
Upgrading And Deleting WordPress Plugins In Your Dashboard – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress uses a number of different methods of letting users know when plugins on their blog need to be updated.
For example, you can instantly see how many plugins are out-of-date inside your Site’s Dashboard by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
In the screenshot below, 9 WordPress plugins are out of date and need updating …
You can also see how many plugins need to be updated from your WP Toolbar (in the screenshot below, you can again see that nine plugins should be brought up to date) …
The Plugins screen (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also notifies you about plugins that need to be updated …
In addition to providing information about plugins that have available updates, the Plugins page 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 upgrade individual plugins.
Upgrade WordPress Plugins Individually
Always make a backup of your site files and database before making any upgrades to your website.
From your main menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” screen. The list of plugins can be quite long depending on the number of plugins you have installed on your site …
(WordPress Plugins Section)
Useful Info:
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 screen and type in 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 pagination feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Search Plugins” feature …
You will see plugin information in different backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (active vs. inactive and up-to-date vs. outdated) …
Plugins that need updating display the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Insert Plugin Name] available” …
Find 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 plugin update process, so that 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 all plugins in bulk.
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Now that you know how to update individual WP plugins, let’s show you how to bulk-update plugins.
How To Upgrade Several WP Plugins Simultaneously
To update multiple plugins at the same time using the automatic updating feature, go to the “Plugins” screen and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Click on the checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to update by checking its box …
In the Bulk Actions pull-down menu at the top of the page, select Update …
Click Apply …
Your selected plugins will begin updating …
After all plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to your Plugins section, or choose another option from the admin menu …
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” notices no longer display) …
All plugins are now up-to-date!
(When your site uses the latest version of all plugins, notification icons do not display)
Now that you know how to upgrade WP plugins, let’s show you how to remove plugins from your WordPress site or blog.
Deleting Plugins
Occasionally, you may want to delete WordPress plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This helps to reduce resources on your server and also help to eliminate causes of problems.
In this section, you will learn how to safely deactivate and delete unused plugins from your site or blog.
Always create 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 reinstall your site.
To remove a plugin, go to your dashboard menu and choose Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins section, locate the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is inactive.
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, click on Deactivate before proceeding with your plugin deletion …
Once you have deactivated the plugin, click Delete …
If you need to review a list of 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” page …
The entire list of files associated with the plugin that you are about to remove will display on your screen …
If you are absolutely certain about going ahead and deleting the selected plugin files, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugins and related files will be deleted from your server …
Deleting Several Plugins Simultaneously
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be deleted.
Note: To delete any plugins that are currently active, you 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 check box, or selecting the check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …
Next, specify Deactivate from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click Apply …
All 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 …
Click the check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to remove by checking their individual boxes …
Once you have ticked all the checkboxes next to the plugins that you want deleted, specify Delete from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click the Apply button …
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 sure that you would like to proceed to the next step and delete all of the selected plugins …
Your selected plugins will be deleted …
Management Tools For WordPress Plugins
As well as the methods shown above, you can install a number of third-party tools to manage your 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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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)