In a separate blog post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use these to easily expand your web site’s capabilities.
You can view the article here:
In this tutorial you will learn why WordPress plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to automatically upgrade and uninstall plugins, and some tips to help you better manage your plugins if you need to run multiple WordPress sites.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why WordPress Plugins Need To Be Upgraded
New WordPress versions are regularly released (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in earlier versions, and to improve existing features or introduce new functionality to WordPress users.
Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, you can expect to see at least some new new update notices for WordPress plugins each time a new WordPress version is made available.
The reason for this, is because most WordPress plugins are created by external developers, so sometimes code in the new 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 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 maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is really simple to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins regularly updated and deleting old plugins you no longer need is part of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid any errors and problems.
The tutorial below explains how to update and delete plugins safely in WordPress without web programming knowledge required.
How To Automatically Upgrade And Delete Plugins Safely In WordPress – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress uses several methods to notify you when plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can see ‘at a glance’ how many plugins need updating as soon as you log into your Administration panel simply by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, 9 WordPress plugins have older versions that need to be updated …
You can also view how many plugins need updating from your WordPress Admin Toolbar (the example below shows that several plugins need updating) …
The Plugins page (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also lets you know which plugins need updating …
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 individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by showing you how to upgrade one plugin at a time.
Updating Single Plugins
Always make a full backup of your site files and database before making any updates to your website or blog.
In your main menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” area. The table of plugins can be quite lengthy depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site …
(Plugins Page)
Useful 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 (by default, all plugins display on the screen), then click Apply …
Your Plugins page will now be reduced in size with a pagination 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 color backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (active vs. inactive and up-to-date vs. out-of-date) …
Plugins in need of updating show the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin] available” …
Find the plugin that needs to be updated 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 happens with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat this process for any other plugins on your site that need updating, or see the section below if you have several 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 one plugin at a time, it’s time to learn how to bulk-upgrade plugins.
How To Upgrade Several Plugins
To bulk-upgrade WordPress plugins simultaneously 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 …
Tick the check box in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to upgrade by checking their individual boxes …
In the Bulk Actions dropdown menu above your plugin table, choose Update …
Click Apply …
Your selected plugins will automatically begin to update …
After all plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to your Plugins screen, or go to another section of your dashboard …
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) …
All plugins have now been updated!
(When plugins on your site are all up-to-date, update messages do not display)
Now that you know how to automatically update your in the dashboard, let’s take a look at how to uninstall plugins from your site.
How To Safely Delete WordPress Plugins
It’s a good idea to remove inactive plugins. This helps to decrease server resources and will help you avoid problems.
In this section, we show you how to uninstall unused plugins from your WordPress blog or site.
We strongly recommend creating 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 delete a plugin, go to your WP admin menu and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins section, find the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is deactivated.
Hint: Inactive plugins appear in 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 with your plugin deletion …
Click Delete …
If you need 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” section …
All files belonging to the plugin that you are about to remove will be listed on your screen …
If you are sure 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 removed from your WordPress installation …
How To Safely Bulk-Delete WordPress Plugins
You can delete all inactive plugins at once, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be removed.
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, select Deactivate from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click the Apply button …
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 …
Tick the checkbox 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 selected all the plugins that you want to delete, choose Delete from the Bulk Actions pull-down 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 absolutely certain 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 …
Useful Management Tools For Plugins
In addition to the methods shown above, you can use WordPress plugins 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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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)