In another article, we provide an overview of what plugins are all about and how you can use these to easily add new features and functionality to your site with no technical skills required.
You can read this article here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date, how to easily update and uninstall your WordPress plugins, and practical tools to help you better manage your plugins if you own or manage multiple WordPress sites or blogs.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Some WordPress Plugins Need Upgrading
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, and to improve existing features.
Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, you can expect to see at least some new updates for plugins each time a new WordPress version is made available.
The reason for this, is because most WordPress plugins are created by third-party developers, so sometimes code in the newly-released WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were developed and tested with a previous version. When this happens, there is a potential for problems to sometimes develop.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are quite proactive when it comes to ensuring that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if this is needed). All you need to do as a website owner, is just maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is very simple to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins regularly updated and removing old plugins you no longer need is an essential aspect of good WordPress management and helps to avoid potential errors and conflicts.
The step-by-step tutorial below explains how to automatically update and delete plugins safely in your dashboard without requiring web coding or programming skills.
How To Update And Delete Plugins Safely Inside Your Dashboard – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress utilizes several ways to inform users when plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can immediately see how many plugins need to be updated inside your Admin area by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, 9 WP plugins need updating …
You can also tell how many plugins need to be updated from your WordPress Notification Toolbar (in the example below, you can again see that nine plugins have to be updated) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you what plugins need updating …
In addition to providing information about plugins that have available updates, the Plugins screen provides links to the plugin developer pages and gives you the option to update your plugins with one-click …
Let’s start by learning how to update one plugin at a time.
Update WordPress Plugins Individually
We strongly recommend performing a complete backup of your data and files before upgrading your blog or website.
From your admin menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” area will display in your browser. The page can be quite long depending on how many plugins you have added to your blog …
(Plugins Page)
Useful Information:
If you have too many plugins installed and would like to reduce the number of plugins showing on the screen, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins area and enter a smaller number of items per page (by default, all plugins display on the page), then click Apply …
Your Plugins page 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” feature …
You will see plugin information in different backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (active vs. inactive and outdated vs up-to-date) …
Plugins in need of updating have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin Name] available” …
Select the plugin that you want to update and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides streamlined plugin updates, so that updating your plugins happens “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat the above process for all plugins on your site that need to be updated, or refer to the section below if you have a number of 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, it’s time to learn how to bulk-update WP plugins.
How To Update Several Plugins Simultaneously
To update multiple WordPress plugins in one go 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 next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to update by checking its box …
In the Bulk Actions dropdown menu above your plugin list, choose Update …
And then click Apply …
Your selected plugins will automatically begin updating …
After all updates have completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to the Plugins area, or choose another option from the main 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” notices no longer display on your screen, toolbar and menus) …
All plugins have now been upgraded!
(When your plugins are up-to-date, update messages no longer appear)
Now that you know how to automatically upgrade WordPress inside the WP dashboard, let’s show you how to remove plugins safely from your blog or website.
How To Delete WP Plugins
As part of good site management practice, it’s a good idea to uninstall plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This can help decrease server resources and eliminate causes of some problems.
In this section, we show you how to safely remove unused plugins from your site.
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 reinstall 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 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 …
Next, click on Delete …
If you need to have a look at all the files that will be deleted before proceeding, 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 that you are about to delete will be listed on your screen …
If you are positively certain about going ahead and deleting the selected plugin, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugin(s) will be deleted from your server …
Bulk-Deleting WordPress 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 check box, 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, specify Deactivate from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click Apply …
All 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 …
Tick the check box in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to delete by checking their individual boxes …
Once you have ticked all the check boxes next to the plugins that you want to delete, choose Delete from the Bulk Actions drop down 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 absolutely sure that you want to go ahead and remove all of the plugins listed …
The plugins will be deleted …
Useful Management Tools For WP Plugins
In addition to the methods shown above, you can use a number of 3rd-party tools 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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