In another blog post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use these to easily extend your blog’s functionality.
You can read the article here:
In this tutorial you will learn why plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to safely upgrade and delete your WordPress plugins, and practical plugin management tools.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Many Of Your Plugins Need Regular Upgrading
WordPress constantly updates its software (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in earlier software releases, and to improve existing features or introduce new functionality to users.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, you can expect to see at least some new new update notices for WordPress plugins every.
The reason for this, is because most plugins for WordPress are created by external developers, so sometimes code in the newly-released WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were created and tested to work with a previous version. When this happens, problems can sometimes develop.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are very proactive when it comes to making sure that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if required). All you have to do on your end, is simply maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is very simple to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date and deleting old plugins you no longer use is an essential aspect of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid any conflicts and errors.
The tutorial below explains how to automatically update and delete plugins from the WP admin dashboard without requiring coding skills or knowledge.
How To Automatically Update And Delete Plugins Safely – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress provides a few methods of letting users know when plugins on their blog need to be updated.
For example, you can tell immediately how many plugins are out-of-date as soon as you log into your Admin area by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
In the example below, you can see that 9 plugins have older versions that need to be updated …
You can also see how many plugins need to be updated from your WP Admin Toolbar (in the screenshot below, you can see how many plugins should be brought up to date) …
The Plugins screen (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also lets you know which plugins need updating …
In addition to providing information about plugins that have available updates, the Plugins page provides links to the plugin download sites and gives you the option to update the plugin with one-click …
Let’s start by learning how to update WordPress plugins one at a time.
Upgrading Individual Plugins
We recommend making a complete backup of your site files and database before upgrading your blog or website.
In your WP admin menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” screen. This table of plugins can be quite lengthy depending on how many plugins you have added to your blog …
(The WordPress Plugins Page)
Tips:
If you have too many plugins and would like to reduce the number of plugins displaying on your screen, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins page and enter a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show on the screen by default), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
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 “Search Plugins” feature …
You will see plugin information in different backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (active vs. inactive and out-of-date vs up-to-date) …
Plugins that require upgrading have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Insert Plugin Name] available” …
Locate the plugin that needs to be updated and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides smooth and simpler plugin updates, so that updating your plugins takes place with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat the above process for all plugins on your site that need updating, or see the section below if you have a number of 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 update individual WordPress plugins, let’s show you how to upgrade several WP plugins simultaneously.
Bulk-Updating WP Plugins
To bulk-update plugins using the automatic update 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 each plugin you want to upgrade by checking their individual boxes …
In the Bulk Actions pull-down menu at the top of the page, select Update …
Click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will begin updating …
After all upgrades are finished, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to the Plugins section, or choose another option from the dashboard menu …
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” 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 appear)
Now that you know how to automatically upgrade your in the WP dashboard, let’s take a look at how to delete plugins safely from your blog or website.
Deleting Plugins
As part of good WordPress management practice, it’s a good idea to delete plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This can help to conserve resources on your server and help to eliminate causes of some problems.
In this section, you will learn 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 remove a plugin, go to your dashboard menu and choose Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins screen, find the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is inactive.
Hint: Inactive plugins use a different background color than active plugins and display an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, click on Deactivate before going any further …
Click Delete …
If you would like to have a look at 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 selected for deletionwill display on your screen …
If you are certain about going ahead and deleting these plugin, then click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugins and related files will be deleted …
Bulk-Deleting 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 presently 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) …
Next, choose Deactivate from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click Apply …
The selected plugins will be deactivated …
To delete all or some of the inactive plugins on your site, go to the “Plugins” page and click on the Inactive link in the Plugins menu …
Click the check box in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to delete by checking its box …
Once you have selected all of the plugins that you want to delete, select Delete from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click the Apply button …
A list of all selected plugins will display 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 sure that you would like to proceed to the next step and delete all of the plugins listed …
The plugins will be deleted …
WordPress Management Tools For WordPress Plugins
As well as the methods shown above, you can use a number of 3rd-party tools 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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