In a separate article, we provide a detailed explanation of what WP plugins are about and how you can use plugins to add new features to your website with no technical knowledge required.
To view the article, go here:
In this tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping your plugins up-to-date, how to easily upgrade and remove plugins from your site, and discover some plugin management tips if you own or manage multiple WordPress sites or blogs.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why WordPress Plugins Need To Be Upgraded
WordPress constantly updates its software (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in previous software versions, and to improve existing features or introduce new functionality to users.
Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, there will typically be new new update notices for WordPress plugins whenever WordPress releases an updated version.
This is because most WordPress plugins are created by third-party developers, so sometimes code or features in the newly-released WordPress version conflict with plugins that were developed and tested with a previous version. When this happens, conflicts can sometimes develop.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are fairly proactive when it comes to ensuring that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if required). All you need to do as a website owner, is keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is very easy and simple to do.
Keeping your 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 any errors and problems.
The WordPress tutorial below explains how to automatically update and delete plugins safely from your WordPress dashboard without web programming knowledge or skills needed.
Updating And Deleting Plugins Safely Inside The WP Admin Dashboard – Tutorial
WordPress has a number of different ways to inform you when plugins need updating.
For example, you can see ‘at a glance’ how many plugins need to be updated from your Admin area by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, you can see that nine plugins are out of date and need updating …
You can also check how many plugins need updating from your WP Administration Toolbar (in the example below, you can again see that nine plugins need to be updated) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also lets you know which plugins need to be updated …
In addition to providing information about plugins that have available updates, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin developer sites and gives you the option to update your plugins individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by showing you how to upgrade individual plugins.
How To Update WordPress Plugins One At A Time
Always make a complete backup of your data and files before updating your website or blog.
In your WP admin menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” screen. The screen can be quite lengthy depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site …
(Plugins Section)
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 (by default, all plugins display on the screen), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
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” function …
You will see information about plugins in different color backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (inactive vs. active and up-to-date vs. outdated) …
Plugins in need of upgrading have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Insert Plugin Name] available” …
Select the plugin that you want to update and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides smooth & simpler plugin updates, so that the process of updating your plugins happens “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat this process for any other 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 at the same time.
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Now that you know how to update individual WordPress plugins, let’s show you how to bulk-upgrade WordPress plugins.
How To Update Various Plugins
To bulk-update plugins directly inside your dashboard, go to the “Plugins” section and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Tick the checkbox in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to update by checking its box …
In the Bulk Actions drop-down menu above the table of plugins, select Update …
Click Apply …
Your selected plugins will begin to update automatically …
Once all plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to the Plugins screen, or select another option from the WordPress dashboard menu …
Once your plugins are all 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) …
All plugins have now been upgraded!
(When your plugins are up-to-date, update icons disappear)
Now that you know how to update WP in your WP dashboard, let’s take a look at how to delete plugins from your WordPress blog or website.
Deleting Plugins
Occasionally, you may choose to delete plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This decreases resources on your server and also helps to eliminate potential problems.
In this section, we show you how to remove unused plugins from your WordPress 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 reinstall your site.
To remove a plugin, go to your main menu and select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins section, locate the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is deactivated.
Hint: Inactive plugins use a different colored background than active plugins and display an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, then click on Deactivate before proceeding …
Click Delete …
If you want 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” section …
The entire list of files associated with the plugin selected for removalwill display on your screen …
If you are positively sure that you want to go ahead and delete the plugin, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugin(s) will be deleted from your WordPress installation …
How To Safely Delete Several WordPress Plugins Simultaneously
You can delete all inactive plugins at once, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be deleted.
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) …
Once you have done this, select Deactivate from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click Apply …
All selected plugins will be deactivated …
To delete all or some of the inactive plugins on your site, go to the “Plugins” screen and click on the Inactive link on the main menu …
Select all of the plugins you want to delete by either placing a tick next to their check box, or click on the checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select and delete all inactive plugins …
Once you have ticked all the check boxes next to the plugins that you want deleted, select Delete from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click Apply …
A list of all selected plugins will show up 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 go ahead and remove all of the plugins listed …
Your plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Managing WP Plugins
As well as the methods shown above, you can install a range of third-party tools 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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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)