In a previous blog post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use plugins to add new features to your blog without editing code.
To read the article, go here:
In this tutorial you will learn why WordPress plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to automatically upgrade and delete plugins, and discover some tips to help you better manage your plugins.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Many Of Your WordPress Plugins Need To Be Upgraded
The WordPress software is constantly updated (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in older releases, as well as to improve existing features.
Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, there will typically be new new update notifications for plugins each time a new WordPress version is released.
The reason for this, is because most WordPress plugins are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes the code in the newly-released WordPress version conflict with plugins that were created and tested to work with a previous version. When this happens, there is a potential for conflicts to sometimes occur.
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 this is required). All you have to do on your end, is keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is very quick, simple and easy to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins regularly updated and deleting old plugins you no longer need is an essential aspect of good WordPress management and helps to avoid errors and conflicts.
The WordPress step-by-step tutorial below explains how to automatically upgrade and delete plugins in WordPress with no web programming knowledge required.
Upgrading And Deleting Plugins – Tutorial
WordPress provides several methods to alert users when plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can instantly see how many plugins need to be updated as soon as you log into your Admin area by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
In the screenshot below, you can see that nine plugins are out of date and need to be updated …
You can also view how many plugins need to be updated from your WordPress Toolbar (in the screenshot below, you can again see that nine plugins need updating) …
The Plugins page (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you what plugins need updating …
As well as providing information about which plugins have available updates, the Plugins page provides links to the plugin developer pages and gives you the option to update the plugins individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by learning how to update plugins one at a time.
How To Upgrade WordPress Plugins One At A Time
We strongly recommend performing a complete backup of your website before making any changes to your website.
From your dashboard menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” area will display in your browser. The table of plugins can be quite long depending on how many plugins you have installed in your site …
(WordPress Plugins Screen)
Tips:
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 area and enter a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show up on the page by default, i.e. “999”), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
Your Plugins page 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” box …
You will see plugin information in different backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (active vs. inactive and out-of-date vs up-to-date) …
Plugins that need updating have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin Name] available” …
Select the plugin that needs updating and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides smooth & fast 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 many plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update them all at the same time.
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Now that you know how to update WordPress plugins individually, it’s time to learn how to upgrade many WordPress plugins simultaneously.
Bulk-Upgrading WP Plugins
To bulk-update WordPress plugins from your admin area, go to the “Plugins” page and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Tick the check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to upgrade by checking their individual boxes …
In the Bulk Actions pull-down menu above the plugin table, select Update …
And then click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will begin to update automatically …
Once the update process has been completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to your Plugins section, or choose another option from the dashboard menu …
Once your plugins are all up-to-date, any plugin alerts disappear (i.e. the “at-a-glance” indicators and “There is a new version of XYZ plugin available” notices no longer display) …
You have updated all plugins on your site!
(When your site uses the latest version of all plugins, the notification icons no longer appear)
Now that you know how to automatically update WP inside your admin dashboard, it’s time to learn how to safely delete plugins from your WordPress site or blog.
How To Safely Remove WordPress Plugins
It’s a good idea to uninstall inactive plugins. This can conserve server resources and also help to reduce causes of problems.
In this section, you will learn how to safely delete unused plugins from your WordPress site or blog.
We strongly recommend creating 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 restore your site.
To delete a plugin, go to your dashboard menu and choose Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins area, find the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is inactive.
Hint: Inactive plugins have 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 proceeding …
Click on Delete …
If you need to review a list of 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” page …
The entire list of files belonging to the plugin that you are about to delete will be listed on your screen …
If you are absolutely sure about going ahead and deleting the plugin, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugin(s) will be deleted …
How To Delete Multiple WP Plugins Simultaneously
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins on your site, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be uninstalled.
Note: To delete any plugins that are currently active, you first need to 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 check box, or selecting the checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …
Next, choose Deactivate from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click the Apply button …
Your selected plugins will be deactivated …
Once you have deactivated your plugins, click on the Inactive link on the menu at the top of the page …
Click the check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to remove by checking its box …
Once you have ticked all the checkboxes 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 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 absolutely sure that you would like to proceed to the next step and remove all of the plugins listed …
Your plugins will be deleted …
Plugin Management – WordPress Tools
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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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now