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

To view the article, go here:

• Using WP Plugins Enhance Your Site’s Features And Functionality

In this tutorial you will learn why WordPress plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to safely upgrade and uninstall your WordPress plugins, and useful plugin management tips.

How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins

Why Many Of Your WordPress Plugins Need Updating

New versions of WordPress are frequently being released (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in older software releases, 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 announced.

The reason for this, is because most plugins for WordPress are created by third-party developers, so sometimes 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 quite proactive when it comes to ensuring that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if needed). All you have to do as a website owner, is keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is very simple, quick and easy to do.

Keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date and deleting old plugins you no longer need is part of good WordPress management and helps to avoid errors or problems.

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

How To Update And Delete Plugins – Step-By-Step Tutorial

WordPress uses several ways of letting you know when plugins on your site need to be updated.

For example, you can see how many plugins need updating inside your Site’s Dashboard simply by looking at the “Plugins” menu.

In the example below, you can see that 9 plugins need updating …

You can also tell how many plugins need updating from your WP Admin Toolbar (as shown below, a number of plugins should be updated) …

The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you how many plugins need updating …

As well as providing information about which plugins have available updates, the Plugins page provides links to the plugin developer pages and gives you the option to update your plugins individually or in bulk …

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

Upgrading WordPress Plugins One At A Time

Always make a complete backup of your website before upgrading your website.

In your WP admin menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …

The “Plugins” section will display in your browser. The list of plugins can go down your screen for some length, depending on the number of plugins you have added to your blog …

(Plugins Screen)

Useful Information:

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 screen and enter a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show on the page by default, i.e. “999”), 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 “Plugin Search” field …

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

Plugins in need of upgrading show the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Insert Plugin Name] available” …

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

WordPress has done away with the loading screen when updating plugins and streamlined the process, so that the process of updating your plugins happens “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins screen …

Repeat the above process for any other plugins on your site that need to be updated, or see the section below if you have a number of plugins that are out-of-date and would like to upgrade all plugins at the same time.

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Now that you know how to upgrade individual WordPress plugins, the next step is to learn how to bulk-update WP plugins.

Bulk-Updating WP Plugins

To update multiple plugins simultaneously directly inside your dashboard, go to the “Plugins” page 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 each plugin you want to upgrade by checking its box …

In the Bulk Actions dropdown menu above the plugin table, choose Update …

Click Apply …

The plugins you have selected will begin the update process …

Once all updates are done, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to your Plugins area, or choose another option from the WordPress dashboard menu …

Once all plugins are up-to-date, the update reminders 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, update icons no longer display)

Now that you know how to automatically upgrade your in your admin dashboard, let’s take a look at how to safely remove plugins safely from your site.

Deleting Plugins

As part of good blog management practices, it’s a good idea to remove plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This can reduce server resources and also will help you avoid causes of problems.

In this section, we show you how to delete unused plugins from your WordPress site or blog.

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 delete a plugin, go to your WP admin menu and choose Plugins > Installed Plugins …

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

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

If the plugin is active, click on Deactivate before proceeding …

Once you have deactivated the plugin, click Delete …

If you need to have a look at all the files that will be deleted before taking 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 associated with the plugin that you are about to delete will display on your screen …

If you are absolutely certain about going ahead and deleting the plugin, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …

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

How To Delete Several Plugins Simultaneously

You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins on your site, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be removed.

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) …

Next, specify Deactivate from the Bulk Actions dropdown 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 …

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 of the plugins that you want deleted, select Delete from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …

Click the Apply button …

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 proceed to the next step and remove all of the selected plugins …

The plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …

Management Tools For WordPress Plugins

As well as the methods shown above, you can install WordPress plugins that help 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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