In another post, we provide an overview of what WP plugins are all about and how you can use plugins to easily enhance your site’s functionality.
To view this article, go here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn why WordPress plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to upgrade and uninstall your WordPress plugins, and practical plugin management tools if you need to own or manage multiple WordPress sites.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Your Plugins Need To Be Regularly Upgraded
WordPress regularly updates its software (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in previous releases, as well as to improve existing features.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, you can expect to see at least some new new update notices for plugins when new versions of WordPress are announced.
This is because most plugins for WordPress are created by external developers, so sometimes the code in the newly-released WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were created and tested to work with a previous version. Whenever this happens, there is a potential for problems 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 needed). All you have to do on your end, is simply keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is really quick, simple and easy to do.
Keeping your plugins regularly updated and removing old plugins you no longer use is part of good WordPress management and helps to avoid any errors or problems.
The tutorial below explains how to upgrade and delete plugins without editing web code.
How To Automatically Upgrade And Delete Plugins Safely – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress has several methods to alert you when plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can immediately see how many plugins are out-of-date inside your Site’s Dashboard by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, you can see that nine WP plugins are out of date and need updating …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 updating from your WordPress Administration Toolbar (in the screenshot below, you can see how many plugins require updating) …
The Plugins screen (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also provides information about plugins that need updating …
In addition to providing information about plugins that have available updates, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin download sites and gives you the option to update the plugin with one-click …
Let’s start by learning how to update individual plugins.
Update Individual Plugins
Always make a backup of your site files and database before making any updates to your website.
In your WP admin menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” area will display in your browser. The table of plugins can run down your page for some length, depending on how many plugins you have installed on your blog …
(WordPress Plugins Section)
Additional Info:
If you have too many plugins installed and would like to reduce the number of plugins displaying on the page, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins page and enter a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show on the screen by default), then click Apply …
Your Plugins section will now be made more manageable with a pagination feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Plugin Search” field …
You will see information about plugins in different color backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (active vs. inactive 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” …
Locate 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 plugin updating process, so that updating your plugins happens with just “one click” 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 many plugins that are out-of-date and would like to upgrade them all in one simple operation.
***
Now that you know how to update one WP plugin at a time, it’s time to learn how to upgrade many plugins simultaneously.
How To Bulk-Upgrade WordPress Plugins
To update multiple plugins in one go 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 checkbox in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to upgrade by checking their individual boxes …
In the Bulk Actions dropdown menu above the list of plugins, select Update …
Click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will update all at once …
After all updates have completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to the Plugins section, or go to a different section of your dashboard …
Once all plugins are up-to-date, any plugin alerts disappear (i.e. the “at-a-glance” indicators and “There is a new version of XYZ plugin available” messages no longer display on your screen, toolbar and menus) …
All plugins are now up-to-date!
(When plugins on your site are up-to-date, notification icons do not display)
Now that you know how to automatically update your plugins, let’s take a look at how to delete plugins from your WordPress site or blog.
How To Delete Plugins
As part of good WordPress site management practice, it’s a good idea to delete inactive plugins. This reduces resources on your server and eliminate problems.
In this section, you will learn how to safely delete unused plugins from your 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 dashboard menu and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins area, 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 show an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, click on Deactivate before proceeding …
Once you have deactivated the plugin, click Delete …
If you want to browse all the files that will be deleted before going ahead with the next step, 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 belonging to the plugin selected for deletionwill be listed on your screen …
If you are absolutely sure that you would like to proceed and delete the plugin files, just click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugins and related files will be deleted …
How To Delete Multiple WP Plugins In Bulk
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins on your site, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be cleared.
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) …
Once you have done this, select Deactivate from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click the Apply button …
All selected plugins will be deactivated …
To delete all or some of the inactive plugins on your site, go to the “Plugins” page 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 checkbox, or click on the check box 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, specify Delete from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click Apply …
A list of all selected plugins will be displayed 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 want to proceed to the next step and remove all of the plugins listed …
Your 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 number of tools that help 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.
***
"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum