In another article, we provide a detailed explanation of what plugins are about and how you can use these to increase your blog’s functionality.

To read the article, go here:

• WP Plugins – Enhancing Your Web Site’s Functionality

In this tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping all plugins up-to-date, how to upgrade and delete your WordPress plugins, and discover some great tips to help you better manage your plugins if you manage multiple WordPress sites.

How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins

Why Some Of Your Plugins Need To Be Frequently Upgraded

New versions of WordPress are regularly released (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in previous releases, and to improve existing features.

Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, there will typically be new new update notifications for plugins every.

The reason for this, is because most plugins for WordPress are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes code in the newly-released WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were developed for a previous version. When this happens, there is a potential for conflicts to sometimes develop.

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 needed). All you have to do on your end, is keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is very quick, simple and easy to do.

Keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date and removing old plugins you no longer use is part of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid any potential conflicts or errors.

The step-by-step tutorial below explains how to automatically update and delete plugins safely without web coding skills required.

Updating And Deleting Plugins In Your Dashboard – Tutorial

WordPress employs several methods of letting users know when plugins on their site need updating.

For example, you can instantly see how many plugins need updating inside your Admin area simply by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.

For example, in the screenshot below, you can see that 9 WP plugins need updating …

You can also view how many plugins need updating from your WP Toolbar (as shown below, several plugins have to be updated) …

The Plugins page (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also lets you know which plugins need updating …

In addition to providing information about which plugins have updates available, the Plugins page provides links to the plugin download sites and gives you the option to update the plugins individually or in bulk …

Let’s start by showing you how to update WP plugins one at a time.

Update Plugins Individually

We strongly recommend performing a backup of your data and files before making any changes to your website or blog.

In your admin menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …

You will be taken to the “Plugins” area. The list of plugins can run down your screen for some length, depending on the number of plugins you have installed on your blog …

(The WordPress Plugins Screen)

Useful Information:

If you have too many plugins and would like to reduce the number of plugins displaying on your screen, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins area and enter a smaller number of items per page (by default, all plugins display on the screen), then click the ‘Apply’ button …

Your Plugins section will now be made more manageable with a ’numbered pages’ feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Search Plugins” function …

You will see plugin information in different backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (active vs. inactive and up-to-date vs. out-of-date) …

Plugins that require upgrading have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Insert Plugin Name] available” …

Locate the plugin that needs updating and click on the update now link …

WordPress has done away with the loading screen when updating plugins and streamlined the plugin updating process, so that the process of updating your plugins takes place with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins area …

Repeat the above process for any other plugins on your site that need to be updated, or see the section below if you have several plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update all plugins at once.

***

Now that you know how to update individual WordPress plugins, the next step is to learn how to update multiple plugins simultaneously.

Bulk-Updating Plugins

To bulk-upgrade plugins from your admin area, go to the “Plugins” area and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …

Tick the checkbox in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to upgrade by checking its box …

In the Bulk Actions drop-down menu above the list of plugins, select Update …

And then click Apply …

The plugins you have selected will automatically begin to update …

After your plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to the Plugins screen, or select another option from the dashboard menu …

Once all plugins are up-to-date, the update reminders disappear (i.e. the “at-a-glance” indicators and “There is a new version of XYZ plugin available” messages no longer display) …

All plugins have now been updated to their latest versions!

(When your site or blog uses the latest version of all plugins, notification icons no longer show)

Now that you know how to automatically upgrade WordPress in your dashboard, it’s time to learn how to uninstall plugins from your WordPress site.

How To Safely Delete Plugins

It’s a good idea to delete plugins that you no longer plan to use. This helps to reduce resource usage and help you avoid problems.

In this section, we show you how to safely delete unused plugins from your WordPress 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 restore your site.

To remove a plugin, go to your admin menu and select Plugins > Installed Plugins …

In the Plugins page, find the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is deactivated.

Hint: Inactive plugins use 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 proceeding …

Click on Delete …

If you need 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” section …

The entire list of files associated with the plugin that you are about to remove will display on your screen …

If you are positively certain about going ahead and deleting the selected plugin files, just click on the Yes, Delete these files button …

Your plugins and related files will be deleted …

How To Safely Bulk-Delete Plugins

You can delete all inactive plugins at once, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be cleared.

Note: To delete any plugins that are presently active, your will 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 checkbox, or selecting the checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …

Next, specify Deactivate from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …

Click the Apply button …

Your selected plugins will be deactivated …

To delete all or some of the inactive plugins on your site, go to the “Plugins” section and click on the Inactive link in the Plugins menu …

Click the checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to delete by checking their individual boxes …

Once you have selected all of the plugins that you want deleted, select Delete from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …

Click Apply …

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 want to proceed to the next step and delete all of the selected plugins …

All plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …

Managing WP Plugins – Tools

In addition to the methods shown above, you can use 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.

***