In a separate blog post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use these to easily add new features to your site without editing code.

To read the article, go here:

• Adding New Functionality To Your Web Site With Plugins

In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date, how to easily upgrade and delete plugins, and useful plugin management tools.

How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins

Why Some Plugins Need Upgrading

New versions of WordPress are frequently being released (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in earlier software versions, and 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 WordPress plugins every.

The reason for this, is because most WordPress plugins are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes code in the new WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were developed and tested with a previous version. When this happens, conflicts can sometimes occur.

Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are very proactive when it comes to ensuring that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if required). All you have to do on your end, is just maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is really simple, quick and easy to do.

Keeping your WordPress plugins regularly updated and removing old plugins you no longer use is part of good WordPress management and helps to avoid conflicts or errors.

The WordPress step-by-step tutorial below explains how to automatically update and delete plugins without touching web code.

Upgrading And Deleting WordPress Plugins Safely – Step-By-Step Tutorial

WordPress utilizes a few methods to let you know when plugins on your site need updating.

For example, you can immediately see how many plugins are out-of-date from your Administration panel just by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.

For example, in the screenshot below, nine plugins need updating …

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

The Plugins screen (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also notifies you about plugins that need updating …

As well as providing information about plugins that have updates available, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin developer sites and gives you the option to update the plugin instantly …

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

Upgrading Plugins One At A Time

Always make a complete backup of your site files and database before updating your blog or website.

From your admin menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …

The “Plugins” page will display in your browser. This list of plugins can be quite long depending on how many plugins you have installed on your blog …

(Plugins Screen)

Useful Info:

If you have too many plugins and would like to reduce the number of plugins displaying on the screen, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins page and type in a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show up on the screen by default, i.e. “999”), then click Apply …

Your Plugins section will now be made more manageable with a ’numbered pages’ feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Plugin Search” feature …

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

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

Select 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 the process of updating your plugins takes place “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins screen …

Repeat this process for any other plugins on your site that need to be updated, or see the section below if you have several plugins that are out-of-date and would like to upgrade all plugins in one simple operation.

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Now that you know how to upgrade individual plugins, let’s show you how to bulk-update plugins.

Bulk-Updating Plugins

To upgrade multiple WordPress plugins at the same time using the automatic updating feature, go to the “Plugins” page 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 their individual boxes …

In the Bulk Actions dropdown menu above the plugin list, select Update …

And then click Apply …

The plugins you have selected will begin the update process …

After all upgrades are completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to the Plugins screen, or select another option from the main menu …

Once all plugins are 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” notices no longer display) …

All plugins are now up-to-date!

(When plugins on your site are up-to-date, the notification icons do not display)

Now that you know how to upgrade inside your dashboard, let’s show you how to uninstall plugins from your site.

How To Safely Remove WP Plugins

It’s a good idea to uninstall inactive plugins. This reduces resource usage and help to eliminate causes of problems.

In this section, you will learn how to safely 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 remove a plugin, go to your main menu and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …

In the Plugins section, find the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is inactive.

Hint: Inactive plugins appear in 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 continuing with your plugin deletion …

Click Delete …

If you would like 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 …

A complete list of files belonging to the plugin selected for deletionwill be listed on your screen …

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

The selected plugins and related files will be deleted …

Deleting Multiple Plugins At Once

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 check box 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 the Apply button …

All selected plugins will be deactivated …

Once you have deactivated these 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 each plugin you want to remove by checking their individual boxes …

Once you have ticked all the check boxes next to the plugins that you want to delete, specify Delete from the Bulk Actions drop-down 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 absolutely sure that you want to proceed to the next step and delete all of the plugins listed …

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

WordPress Tools For Managing Plugins

As well as the methods shown above, you can use WordPress plugins to 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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