In another blog post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use plugins to increase your website’s capabilities.
To read the article, go here:
In this tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping all WordPress plugins up-to-date, how to update and uninstall your WordPress plugins, and discover some great plugin management tips if you need to run or manage multiple WordPress sites or blogs.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Your Plugins Need To Be Regularly Upgraded
New versions of WordPress are regularly released (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in previous releases, and 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 plugins whenever new WordPress versions are released.
This is because most WordPress plugins are created by third-party developers, so sometimes the code in the new WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were built for a previous version. When this happens, conflicts can sometimes occur.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are quite proactive when it comes to making sure 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 just keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is very quick, simple and easy to do.
Keeping your plugins up-to-date and deleting old plugins you no longer use is part of good WordPress management and helps to avoid potential errors or problems.
The step-by-step tutorial below explains how to update and delete plugins safely without web programming knowledge necessary.
Upgrading And Deleting Plugins Safely – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress has a number of different ways of letting users know when plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can immediately see how many plugins need to be updated as soon as you log into your Site’s Dashboard just by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
In the screenshot below, nine WP plugins need updating …
You can also check how many plugins need to be updated from your WordPress Admin Toolbar (the screenshot below shows how many plugins should be brought up to date) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you what plugins need updating …
In addition to 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 with one-click …
Let’s start by learning how to upgrade individual plugins.
Update Plugins One At A Time
We recommend performing a backup of your data and files before upgrading your website or blog.
From your dashboard menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” area will display in your browser. The page can be quite lengthy depending on the number of plugins you have added to 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 screen and type in a smaller number of items per page (by default, all plugins display on the page), then click Apply …
Your Plugins section 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 “Search Installed Plugins” field …
You will see 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 [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 update process, so that updating your plugins takes place with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat this process for all 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 all plugins in bulk.
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Now that you know how to upgrade plugins one at a time, it’s time to learn how to update multiple WP plugins simultaneously.
Bulk-Updating Plugins
To upgrade multiple WordPress plugins in one go using the automatic upgrading feature, go to the “Plugins” area and click on the Update Available 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 upgrade by checking its box …
In the Bulk Actions drop down menu above the table of plugins, choose Update …
And then click Apply …
Your selected plugins will all be updated at once …
Once your plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to your Plugins area, or choose another option from the admin menu …
Once all plugins are up-to-date, any plugin alerts 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 your plugins are up-to-date, the notification icons do not display)
Now that you know how to automatically upgrade your plugins, let’s show you how to delete plugins safely from your WordPress site or blog.
Deleting WP Plugins
At times, you may decide to remove plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This helps to conserve resources on your server and also help you avoid potential problems.
In this section, you will learn how to safely uninstall unused plugins from your WordPress site.
Always create 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 remove a plugin, go to your dashboard menu and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins page, find the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is deactivated.
Hint: Inactive plugins have a different background color than active plugins and show an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, click on Deactivate before continuing …
Next, click Delete …
If you would like to review a list of 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” page …
A complete list of files belonging to the plugin that you are about to remove will display on your screen …
If you are absolutely sure that you would like to proceed and delete these plugin files, then click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugin(s) will be deleted …
How To Delete Several WordPress Plugins In Bulk
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be cleared.
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 check box 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 dropdown menu …
Click the Apply button …
The selected plugins will be deactivated …
To delete all or some of the inactive plugins, go to the “Plugins” section and click on the Inactive link in the Plugins menu …
Click on the check box in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to delete by checking its box …
Once you have ticked all the check boxes next to the plugins that you want deleted, choose Delete from the Bulk Actions drop-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 sure that you would like to go ahead and delete all of the plugins listed …
Your plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Managing WordPress Plugins – Useful WordPress Tools
In addition to the methods shown above, you can install WordPress plugins 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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"I have used the tutorials to teach all of my clients and it has probably never been so easy for everyone to learn WordPress ... Now I don't need to buy all these very expensive video courses that often don't deliver what they promise." - Stefan Wendt, Internet Marketing Success Group