In a separate article, we provide a detailed explanation of what plugins are all about and how you can use these to add new features to your website with no technical knowledge required.
To read this article, go here:
In this tutorial you will learn why WordPress plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to update and uninstall plugins from your site, and useful plugin management tips.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Many Plugins Need Updating
The WordPress software is constantly updated (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in previous software releases, as well as to improve existing features.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, you can expect to see at least some new new update notifications for plugins every.
The reason for this, is because most plugins for WordPress are created by third-party developers, so sometimes code in the newly-released WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were created and tested to work with a previous version. When this happens, problems can sometimes occur.
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 this is required). All you have to do on your end, is keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is really easy 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 any potential errors and problems.
The tutorial below explains how to upgrade and delete plugins without requiring coding skills or knowledge.
Updating And Deleting Plugins In WordPress – Tutorial
WordPress uses a few ways to let you know when your plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can tell immediately how many plugins need to be updated as soon as you log into your WordPress Dashboard just by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, you can see that nine WordPress plugins need to be updated …
You can also check how many plugins need to be updated from your WP Toolbar (as shown below, several plugins need updating) …
The Plugins page (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you how many plugins need to be updated …
As well as providing information about plugins that have updates available, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin developer pages and gives you the option to update your plugin instantly …
Let’s start by showing you how to upgrade individual WordPress plugins.
Update Individual Plugins
Always make a full backup of your site files and database before upgrading your website.
In your dashboard menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” page will display in your browser. This page can be quite long depending on the number of plugins you have added to your site …
(The WordPress Plugins Page)
Additional 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 page and type in a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show up on the screen by default), then click Apply …
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” function …
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 need upgrading have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Insert Plugin Name] available” …
Select the plugin that you want to update and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides simple plugin updates, so that the process of updating your plugins takes place “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat this process for all plugins on your site that need to be updated, or refer to the section below if you have a number of plugins that are out-of-date and would like to upgrade all plugins at once.
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Now that you know how to upgrade one WP plugin at a time, it’s time to learn how to upgrade multiple WP plugins simultaneously.
Bulk-Upgrading Plugins
To bulk-update WordPress plugins directly inside your dashboard, 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 upgrade by checking their individual boxes …
In the Bulk Actions drop down menu above the table of plugins, choose Update …
And then click Apply …
Your selected plugins will begin the update process …
Once all updates are finished, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to your Plugins section, or choose another option from the admin menu …
Once your plugins are all up-to-date, the plugin notifications will disappear (i.e. the “at-a-glance” indicators and “There is a new version of XYZ plugin available” notices no longer display on your screen, toolbar and menus) …
You have updated all plugins on your site to their latest version!
(When plugins on your site are all up-to-date, update notices disappear)
Now that you know how to automatically upgrade plugins, let’s show you how to safely delete plugins from your WordPress site.
How To Delete Plugins
It’s a good idea to remove plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This reduces resources on your server and also eliminate problems.
In this section, you will learn how to safely deactivate and delete unused plugins from your WordPress site.
Always create a full back up of your site before installing, upgrading or deleting plugins, in case something goes wrong and you need to recover data or reinstall your site.
To delete a plugin, go to your WP admin menu and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins area, locate the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is deactivated.
Hint: Inactive plugins have a different background color than active plugins and show an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, then click on Deactivate before going any further …
Click on Delete …
If you want to have a look at all the files that will be deleted before proceeding any further, then click on the “Click to view entire list of files which will be deleted” link in the “Delete Plugin” page …
All files belonging to the plugin selected for removalwill be listed on your screen …
If you are absolutely sure that you would like to go ahead and delete the selected plugin, just click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugin(s) will be removed from your server …
How To Safely Bulk-Delete WordPress Plugins
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins on your site, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be removed.
Note: To delete any plugins that are presently 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 checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …
Once you have done this, choose Deactivate from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click the Apply button …
The selected plugins will be deactivated …
To delete all or some of the inactive plugins on your site, go to the “Plugins” area and click on the Inactive link on the main menu …
Select all of the plugins you want to delete by either placing a tick next to their checkbox, or click on the check box next to the Plugin column header to select and delete all inactive plugins …
Once you have selected all the plugins that you want to delete, select Delete from the Bulk Actions drop-down menu …
Click Apply …
A list of all selected plugins will show up 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 remove all of the plugins listed …
The selected plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
WordPress Tools For Managing Plugins
In addition to the methods shown above, you can use a number of tools that let you manage your WordPress 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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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now