In a separate blog post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use these to easily extend your website’s functionality.
To view this article, go here:
In this tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date, how to automatically upgrade and uninstall plugins from your site, and discover some great plugin management tools.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Your WordPress Plugins Need Frequent Updating
The WordPress software is regularly updated (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in earlier versions, as well as to improve existing features or introduce new functionality to users.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, there will typically be new new update notices for plugins whenever WordPress distributes a new version.
The reason for this, is because most plugins for WordPress are created by external developers, so sometimes code in the new WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were built for a previous version. When this happens, there is a potential for issues to sometimes develop.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are fairly proactive when it comes to making sure that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if this is required). All you have to do as a WordPress user, is just keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is very simple, quick and easy to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date and deleting old plugins you no longer need is an essential aspect of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid problems and errors.
The WordPress tutorial below explains how to update and delete plugins safely from the dashboard without editing web code.
Updating And Deleting Plugins – Tutorial
WordPress employs a number of different ways of letting you know when your plugins need updating.
For example, you can tell immediately how many plugins are out-of-date inside your Administration panel simply by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
In the example below, you can see that nine WordPress plugins have older versions that need updating …
You can also see how many plugins need updating from your WP Notification Toolbar (the example below shows how many plugins need updating) …
The Plugins page (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also notifies you about plugins that need to be updated …
In addition to providing information about plugins that have updates available, the Plugins page 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 plugins individually.
Update Single A Plugin
Always make a backup of your site files and database before updating your website.
From your WP admin menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” page will display in your browser. This table of plugins can be quite long depending on how many plugins you have installed in your site …
(WordPress Plugins Screen)
Additional Information:
If you have too many plugins and would like to make this section more manageable, 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 up on the page by default), then click Apply …
Your Plugins area will now be reduced in size with a ’numbered pages’ feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Search Installed Plugins” field …
WordPress displays information about plugins in different backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (active vs. inactive and up-to-date vs. outdated) …
Plugins that require updating show the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin] available” …
Select 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 updating, or see the section below if you have several plugins that are out-of-date and would like to upgrade them all at once.
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Now that you know how to upgrade plugins individually, let’s show you how to bulk-upgrade WordPress plugins.
How To Bulk-Upgrade WP Plugins
To bulk-upgrade plugins simultaneously using the automatic update feature, go to the “Plugins” section 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 at the top of the page, choose Update …
Click Apply …
Your selected plugins will begin to update automatically …
Once your plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to your Plugins section, or select another option from the admin menu …
Once your plugins are all up-to-date, the update reminders 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 to their latest version!
(When plugins on your site are all up-to-date, notification icons do not display)
Now that you know how to update WordPress inside the dashboard, it’s time to learn how to remove plugins safely from your site or blog.
Deleting Plugins
It’s a good idea to delete inactive plugins. This can reduce resources on your server and also help to minimize potential problems.
In this section, we show you how to uninstall unused plugins from your WordPress site or blog.
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 delete a plugin, go to your main menu and choose Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins page, locate the plugin you want to delete 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, click on Deactivate before proceeding with your plugin deletion …
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” screen …
A complete list of files associated with the plugin selected for deletionwill be listed on your screen …
If you are absolutely certain that you would like to go ahead and delete the selected plugin, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugins and related files will be deleted …
How To Safely Bulk-Delete WordPress Plugins
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 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 checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …
Next, specify Deactivate from the Bulk Actions drop-down menu …
Click the Apply button …
Your 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 their individual boxes …
Once you have ticked all the check boxes next to the plugins that you want deleted, specify Delete from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click Apply …
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 would like to go ahead and delete all of the selected plugins …
Your plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
WordPress Management Tools For WP Plugins
As well as the methods shown above, you can use a range 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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