In another post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use these to add new features to your website with no coding skills required.
To read the article, go here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping all plugins up-to-date, how to upgrade and delete plugins from your site, and useful plugin management tools.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Some WordPress Plugins Need Upgrading
New versions of WordPress are regularly released (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in older software versions, as well as to improve existing features or introduce new functionality to 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 version of WordPress is released.
The reason for this, is because most plugins for WordPress are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes features in the newly-released WordPress version conflict with plugins that were developed and tested with a previous version. When this happens, there is a potential for conflicts to sometimes occur.
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 needed). All you need to do as a WordPress user, is keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is really simple to do.
Keeping your plugins up-to-date and removing old plugins you no longer use is part of good WordPress management and helps to avoid any problems and errors.
The step-by-step tutorial below explains how to update and delete WordPress plugins safely without editing web code.
Upgrading And Deleting Plugins Safely Inside The WordPress Admin Dashboard – Tutorial
WordPress employs a number of different ways to notify you when plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can tell immediately how many plugins are out-of-date as soon as you log into your Site’s Dashboard simply by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, you can see that 9 WordPress plugins have older versions that need updating …
You can also tell how many plugins need to be updated from your WordPress Toolbar (as shown below, nine 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 screen provides links to the plugin developer sites and gives you the option to update the plugin instantly …
Let’s start by showing you how to update WordPress plugins individually.
How To Upgrade Single WordPress Plugins
Always make a backup of your site files and database before upgrading your website.
From your admin menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” screen. The list of plugins can flow down your page for some length, depending on the number of plugins you have installed on your blog …
(Plugins Page)
Additional Information:
If you have too many plugins installed and would like to reduce the number of plugins showing on the screen, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins screen and enter a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show on the screen by default, i.e. “999”), then click Apply …
Your Plugins area will now be made more manageable with a pagination feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Plugin Search” feature …
WordPress displays information about plugins in different backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (active vs. inactive and outdated vs up-to-date) …
Plugins that require updating have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Insert Plugin Name] available” …
Find the plugin that needs updating and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides streamlined plugin updates, so that the process of updating your plugins takes place “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat this process for all plugins on your site that need to be updated, or refer to the section below if you have a number of plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update all plugins at once.
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Now that you know how to upgrade one WP plugin at a time, the next step is to learn how to upgrade several WP plugins simultaneously.
Bulk-Updating Plugins
To update multiple WP plugins simultaneously using the automatic update 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 next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to update by checking their individual boxes …
In the Bulk Actions dropdown menu at the top of the page, select Update …
And then click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will begin the update process …
After your plugins have all been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to your Plugins area, or visit a different section of your dashboard …
Once all plugins are 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) …
All plugins are now up-to-date!
(When your site uses the latest version of all plugins, notification icons do not display)
Now that you know how to upgrade your inside the admin dashboard, let’s take a look at how to uninstall plugins from your site or blog.
Deleting Plugins
At times, you may want to delete WordPress plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This reduces resources on your server and help to minimize potential problems.
In this section, you will learn how to uninstall unused plugins from your 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 reinstall your site.
To remove a plugin, go to your 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 …
Once you have deactivated the plugin, click Delete …
If you need to review a list of 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” screen …
All 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, then click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugin(s) will be deleted …
Deleting Several Plugins Simultaneously
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, 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 checkbox, or selecting the checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …
Next, select Deactivate from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click Apply …
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 check box next to the Plugin column header to select and delete all inactive plugins …
Once you have selected all the plugins that you want to delete, select Delete from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click Apply …
A list of all selected plugins will be displayed 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 …
Your selected plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Plugin Management – Useful WordPress Tools
As well as the methods shown above, you can install WordPress plugins that let you 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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