In another post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use these to easily expand your web site’s capabilities.
To read the article, go here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn why plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to automatically update and delete plugins, and discover useful tips to help you better manage your plugins.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Some Of Your WordPress Plugins Need To Be Upgraded
The WordPress software is regularly updated (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in earlier versions, and to improve existing features.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, there will typically be new new update notifications for WordPress plugins each time a new WordPress version is released.
The reason for this, is because most plugins for WordPress are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes the code in the new WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were developed for a previous version. Whenever this happens, there is a potential for issues to sometimes occur.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are fairly proactive when it comes to ensuring that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if this is needed). All you have to do as a WordPress user, is simply keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is really simple to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins regularly updated and removing old plugins you no longer need is an essential aspect of good WordPress management and helps to avoid any potential errors and problems.
The WordPress tutorial below explains how to update and delete plugins in WordPress without editing web code.
How To Automatically Upgrade And Delete Plugins Safely Inside The WordPress Dashboard – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress has several methods of letting you know when your plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can see ‘at a glance’ how many plugins need updating inside your Admin area simply by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
In the screenshot below, you can see that nine WordPress plugins are out of date and need to be updated …
You can also check how many plugins need updating from your WP Notification Toolbar (as shown below, several plugins should be updated) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also lets you know which plugins need updating …
In addition to 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 your plugin individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by showing you how to update individual plugins.
Update Single Plugins
We strongly recommend performing a backup of your data and files before updating your website or blog.
From your dashboard menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” page. The list of plugins can run down your screen for some length, depending on the number of plugins you have added to your blog …
(Plugins Section)
Additional Information:
If you have too many plugins and would like to reduce the number of plugins displaying on the page, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins area and enter a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show on the page by default), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
Your Plugins area 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” feature …
You will see plugin information in different color backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (active vs. inactive and outdated vs up-to-date) …
Plugins in need of updating display the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin Name] available” …
Find 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 updating your plugins takes place with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat the above process for any other plugins on your site that need updating, or refer to the section below if you have many plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update all plugins at the same time.
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Now that you know how to upgrade individual plugins, the next step is to learn how to bulk-upgrade plugins.
Bulk-Upgrading WordPress Plugins
To update multiple plugins at the same time 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 …
Click the checkbox in 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 …
The plugins you have selected will begin the update process …
After all plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to your Plugins section, or choose another option from the WordPress admin menu …
Once your plugins are all up-to-date, the plugin notifications 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 are now up-to-date!
(When your site or blog uses the latest version of all plugins, update messages do not display)
Now that you know how to automatically update your inside your admin dashboard, let’s take a look at how to remove plugins safely from your WordPress site or blog.
How To Safely Delete Plugins
Occasionally, you may choose to delete plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This helps to conserve resources on your server and also eliminate problems.
In this section, you will learn how to safely delete unused plugins from your WordPress blog or 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 restore your site.
To remove a plugin, go to your WP admin menu and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins screen, locate the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is inactive.
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 with your plugin deletion …
Next, click Delete …
If you want to browse all the files that will be deleted before proceeding, then click on the “Click to view entire list of files which will be deleted” link in the “Delete Plugin” page …
All files associated with the plugin that you are about to delete will display on your screen …
If you are certain that you would like to proceed and delete the plugin, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugin(s) will be deleted …
How To Safely Bulk-Delete Plugins
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins on your site, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be deleted.
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 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 drop down menu …
Click the Apply button …
The selected plugins will be deactivated …
Once you have deactivated your 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, choose Delete from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click the Apply button …
A list of all selected plugins will display 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 want to proceed to the next step and delete all of the selected plugins …
All selected plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Plugin Management – Tools
As well as the methods shown above, you can install a number of tools 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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"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum