In another blog post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use these to easily add new features and functionality to your website with no software programming skills required.
You can read this article here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn why WordPress plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to easily upgrade and uninstall plugins from your site, and useful plugin management tips if you need to run multiple WordPress sites.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Some Of Your WordPress Plugins Need Regular Updating
New WordPress versions are regularly released (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in earlier releases, as well as to improve existing features.
Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, there will typically be new updates for plugins every.
The reason for this, is because most plugins for WordPress are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes features in the newly-released WordPress version conflict with plugins that were developed and tested with a previous version. When this happens, there is a potential for issues to sometimes occur.
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 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 to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins regularly updated and removing old plugins you no longer use is an essential aspect of good WordPress management and helps to avoid errors or conflicts.
The WordPress step-by-step tutorial below explains how to upgrade and delete plugins without editing web code.
How To Automatically Upgrade And Delete Plugins From Your WP Admin Dashboard – Tutorial
WordPress utilizes a few ways of letting you know when plugins on your site need updating.
For example, you can see how many plugins need to be updated inside your Administration area simply by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
In the screenshot below, you can see that nine WP plugins are out of date and need updating …
You can also view how many plugins need to be updated from your WP Notification Toolbar (as shown below, several plugins require updating) …
The Plugins page (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also provides information about plugins that need updating …
In addition to providing information about which plugins have updates available, the Plugins page provides links to the plugin download pages and gives you the option to update the plugins individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by showing you how to upgrade individual WordPress plugins.
Update Individual WordPress Plugins
Always make a complete backup of your website before upgrading your website.
In your main menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” area. This screen can be quite lengthy depending on how many plugins you have installed in your blog …
(Plugins Section)
Tips:
If you have too many plugins installed and would like to reduce the number of plugins displayed on the screen, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins area and type in a smaller number of items per page (by default, all plugins display on the page), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
Your Plugins page will now be made more manageable with a page scrolling feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Search Plugins” field …
You will see plugin information in different backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (inactive vs. active and outdated vs up-to-date) …
Plugins that need upgrading show the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin Name] available” …
Find the plugin that needs updating and click on the update now link …
WordPress has done away with the loading screen when updating plugins and streamlined the process, so that updating your plugins takes place with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat the above process for any other plugins on your site that need updating, or refer to the section below if you have several plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update all plugins at the same time.
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Now that you know how to update individual WordPress plugins, the next step is to learn how to bulk-update WordPress plugins.
Bulk-Updating WordPress Plugins
To bulk-update plugins simultaneously from your admin area, go to the “Plugins” section 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 each plugin you want to update by checking its box …
In the Bulk Actions drop down menu at the top of the page, choose Update …
And then click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will begin to update automatically …
After your plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to the Plugins area, or choose a different section of your dashboard …
Once all plugins are 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” notices no longer display on your screen, toolbar and menus) …
All plugins are now up-to-date!
(When your site or blog uses the latest version of all plugins, update messages no longer appear)
Now that you know how to automatically update your inside your WP dashboard, let’s take a look at how to remove plugins from your WordPress site or blog.
How To Delete Plugins
At times, you may choose to delete plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This reduces server resources and also help to reduce potential problems.
In this section, we show you 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 reinstall your site.
To remove a plugin, go to your WP admin menu and select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins page, find the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is deactivated.
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, then click on Deactivate before proceeding …
Next, click on Delete …
If you want to browse all the files that will be deleted before going ahead, then click on the “Click to view entire list of files which will be deleted” link in the “Delete Plugin” section …
All files belonging to the plugin that you are about to delete will be listed on your screen …
If you are certain about going ahead and deleting the selected plugin, then click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugin(s) will be removed from your WordPress installation …
How To Safely Delete Several Plugins Simultaneously
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins on your site, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be removed.
Note: To delete any plugins that are currently 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 check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …
Next, select Deactivate from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click Apply …
The 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 only the plugins you want to delete by checking their individual boxes …
Once you have ticked all the checkboxes next to the plugins that you want deleted, specify Delete from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click the Apply button …
A list of all selected plugins will show up 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 plugins listed …
All selected plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
WordPress Tools For Managing Plugins
In addition to the methods shown above, you can use a range of 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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"I have used the tutorials to teach all of my clients and it has probably never been so easy for everyone to learn WordPress ... Now I don't need to buy all these very expensive video courses that often don't deliver what they promise." - Stefan Wendt, Internet Marketing Success Group