In another blog post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use plugins to easily expand your blog’s functionality.
You can read the article here:
In this tutorial you will learn why WordPress plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to safely upgrade and uninstall plugins, and discover practical tips to help you better manage your plugins.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Plugins Need Upgrading
New WordPress versions are regularly released (about every 3-4 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 updates for WordPress plugins whenever WordPress distributes a new version.
This is because most plugins for WordPress are created by external developers, so sometimes code or features in the new WordPress version conflict with plugins that were developed for a previous version. When this happens, issues can sometimes develop.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are fairly 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 need to do on your end, is just keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is really simple to do.
Keeping your plugins up-to-date and removing old plugins you no longer use is an essential aspect of good WordPress management and helps to avoid any conflicts or errors.
The tutorial below explains how to update and delete plugins safely without requiring coding skills or knowledge.
Upgrading And Deleting Plugins Safely From The Dashboard – Tutorial
WordPress utilizes several methods to notify users when plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can see how many plugins are out-of-date inside your Admin area simply by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
In the screenshot below, you can see that nine plugins have older versions that need to be updated …
You can also see how many plugins need updating from your WP Notification Toolbar (in the screenshot below, you can again see that 9 plugins have 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 updates available, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin developer sites and gives you the option to update the plugin individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by learning how to upgrade WordPress plugins one at a time.
Upgrading WordPress Plugins Individually
Always make a full backup of your site files and database before upgrading your website or blog.
In your dashboard menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” area. The table of plugins can be quite long depending on the number of plugins you have added to your site …
(The WordPress Plugins Section)
Additional Info:
If you have too many plugins and would like to reduce the number of plugins displayed on your page, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins page 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 page scrolling feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Search” box …
WordPress displays plugin information in different backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (active vs. inactive and up-to-date vs. out-of-date) …
Plugins in need of updating display the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin] available” …
Locate the plugin that needs to be updated and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides simple plugin updates, so that the process of updating your plugins happens “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat the above process for any other plugins on your site that need updating, or see the section below if you have many plugins that are out-of-date and would like to upgrade them all in one simple operation.
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Now that you know how to update WP plugins individually, the next step is to learn how to bulk-upgrade WordPress plugins.
How To Bulk-Update WP Plugins
To bulk-upgrade plugins using the automatic upgrade 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 check box in 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 drop-down menu above the table of plugins, choose Update …
Click Apply …
Your selected plugins will begin to update automatically …
After the update process has been completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to the Plugins screen, or choose another option from the dashboard menu …
Once all plugins are 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” messages no longer display on your screen, toolbar and menus) …
You have updated all plugins on your site!
(When plugins on your site are all up-to-date, the notification icons no longer show)
Now that you know how to automatically upgrade in the dashboard, let’s take a look at how to delete plugins safely from your WordPress site or blog.
Deleting Plugins
As part of good site management practices, it’s a good idea to delete plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This can conserve resource usage and helps to eliminate problems.
In this section, we show you how to safely delete unused plugins from your site.
We strongly recommend creating 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 main menu and choose Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins area, find the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is inactive.
Hint: Inactive plugins use 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 …
Next, click on Delete …
If you want to have a look at all the files that will be deleted before going ahead with the next step, then click on the “Click to view entire list of files which will be deleted” link in the “Delete Plugin” screen …
A complete list of files belonging to the plugin selected for removalwill display 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 …
The selected plugin(s) will be deleted …
Bulk-Deleting Plugins
You can delete all inactive plugins at once, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be uninstalled.
Note: To delete any plugins that are currently 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 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 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” section and click on the Inactive link in the Plugins menu …
Click on the checkbox in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin 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 pull-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 absolutely sure that you would like to go ahead and remove all of the selected plugins …
All plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Management Tools For WP 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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