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In another blog post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use plugins to easily expand your site’s capabilities.

You can view this article here:

• WP Plugins – Extending Your Site’s Features

In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping your plugins up-to-date, how to automatically upgrade and uninstall plugins from your site, and useful tips to help you better manage your plugins.

Why Your WordPress Plugins Need Upgrading

New WordPress versions are regularly released (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 have installed on your site, there will typically be new new update notifications for WordPress plugins each time a new version of WordPress is announced.

The reason for this, is because most plugins for WordPress are created by external developers, so sometimes code or features in the newly-released WordPress version conflict with plugins that were developed for a previous version. When this happens, there is a potential for problems 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 this is required). All you need to do on your end, is simply keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is really simple, quick and easy to do.

Keeping your WordPress 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 or problems.

The step-by-step tutorial below explains how to update and delete plugins safely without requiring web programming knowledge or skills.

Updating And Deleting Plugins Safely – Step-By-Step Tutorial

WordPress provides a number of different ways to let you know when your plugins need to be updated.

For example, you can tell immediately how many plugins are out-of-date inside your Admin area simply by looking at the “Plugins” menu.

In the screenshot below, 9 plugins need to be updated …

You can also see how many plugins need updating from your WP Toolbar (the screenshot below shows that a number of plugins need to be updated) …

The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also notifies you about plugins that need updating …

As well as providing information about plugins that have available updates, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin download pages and gives you the option to update the plugin with one-click …

Let’s start by learning how to upgrade one WP plugin at a time.

Upgrade Single A Plugin

We strongly recommend making a complete backup of your website before upgrading your website or blog.

In your main menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …

The “Plugins” screen will display in your browser. The list of plugins can flow down your page for a while, depending on the number of plugins you have added to your blog …

(Plugins Page)

Tips:

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 area and type in a smaller number of items per page (by default, all plugins display on the screen), then click the ‘Apply’ button …

Your Plugins page 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” field …

WordPress displays plugin information in different backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (inactive vs. active and up-to-date vs. outdated) …

Plugins in need of updating have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin Name] available” …

Select the plugin that you want to update and click on the update now link …

WordPress provides streamlined plugin updates, so that the process of updating your plugins takes place with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins screen …

Repeat the above process for all plugins on your site that need updating, or see the section below if you have a number of plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update them all in one simple operation.

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Now that you know how to update individual plugins, let’s show you how to upgrade a bunch of WP plugins simultaneously.

How To Upgrade Multiple Plugins

To upgrade multiple WordPress plugins in one go from your admin area, go to the “Plugins” screen and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …

Tick the check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to upgrade by checking its box …

In the Bulk Actions pull-down menu at the top of the page, choose Update …

And then click Apply …

Your selected plugins will automatically begin updating …

After the update process has been completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to your Plugins screen, or choose another option from the main menu …

Once your plugins are all up-to-date, the update reminders 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) …

All plugins have now been updated!

(When your site or blog uses the latest version of all plugins, update icons disappear)

Now that you know how to automatically update plugins, let’s take a look at how to uninstall plugins safely from your WordPress site or blog.

How To Safely Remove WordPress Plugins

It’s a good idea to remove plugins that you no longer require. This helps to decrease resources on your server and also helps to eliminate problems.

In this section, you will learn how to safely remove unused plugins from your site.

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 delete a plugin, go to your admin menu and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …

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

Hint: Inactive plugins are listed in a different colored background than active plugins and display an “Activate” link below the plugin name …

If the plugin is active, then click on Deactivate before going any further …

Next, click 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 selected for removalwill be listed on your screen …

If you are positively sure that you want to proceed and delete the plugin files, just click on the Yes, Delete these files button …

The selected plugins and related files will be deleted from your WordPress installation …

How To Safely Delete Multiple Plugins At Once

You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be uninstalled.

Note: To delete any plugins that are currently 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 check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …

Once you have done this, specify Deactivate from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …

Click Apply …

The selected plugins will be deactivated …

Once you have deactivated these plugins, click on the Inactive link on the menu at the top of the page …

Select all of the plugins you want to delete by either placing a tick next to their checkbox, or click on the checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select and delete all inactive plugins …

Once you have ticked all the check boxes next to the plugins that you want to delete, 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 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 go ahead and delete all of the selected plugins …

Your plugins will be deleted …

WordPress Management Tools For WordPress Plugins

As well as the methods shown above, you can use WordPress plugins to 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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