In a separate article, we explain what plugins are and how you can use these to easily increase your blog’s capabilities.
You can read this article here:
In this tutorial you will learn why WordPress plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to automatically update and remove plugins from your site, and discover some great tips to help you better manage your plugins.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Some Of Your WordPress Plugins Need Regular Upgrading
WordPress constantly updates its software (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in older software releases, and to improve existing features.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, there will typically be new updates for WordPress plugins every.
The reason for this, is because most plugins for WordPress are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes features in the new WordPress version conflict with plugins that were developed and tested with a previous version. Whenever this happens, there is a potential for conflicts to sometimes develop.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are fairly proactive when it comes to ensuring that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if needed). All you have to do as a website owner, is simply maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is very simple, quick and easy to do.
Keeping your plugins regularly updated and removing old plugins you no longer need is an essential aspect of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid errors and conflicts.
The tutorial below explains how to automatically upgrade and delete plugins without editing web code.
How To Automatically Upgrade And Delete Plugins Safely In WordPress – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress provides a few methods to inform you when plugins need updating.
For example, you can immediately see how many plugins need to be updated as soon as you log into your Administration area by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
In the example below, nine WP plugins need to be updated …
You can also view how many plugins need updating from your WordPress Notification Toolbar (in the screenshot below, you can again see that nine plugins should be updated) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you how many plugins need updating …
As well as providing information about which plugins have available updates, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin download pages and gives you the option to update the plugin individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by showing you how to update one WordPress plugin at a time.
How To Upgrade Single WordPress Plugins
We strongly recommend performing a full backup of your website before making any updates to your website or blog.
In your dashboard menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” page will display in your browser. This page can be quite long depending on how many plugins you have installed on your blog …
(The WordPress Plugins Screen)
Notes:
If you have too many plugins installed and would like to reduce the number of plugins displayed on your page, 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 screen), then click Apply …
Your Plugins area 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” function …
You will see plugin information in different backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (active vs. inactive and up-to-date vs. out-of-date) …
Plugins that need upgrading have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Insert Plugin Name] available” …
Find the plugin that you want to update 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 updating your plugins takes place “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat the above process for any other 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 all plugins at once.
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Now that you know how to update plugins individually, let’s show you how to update a bunch of WP plugins simultaneously.
Bulk-Upgrading Plugins
To upgrade multiple plugins at the same time 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 …
Click 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 drop down menu above your plugin list, select Update …
And then click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will begin the update process …
Once all plugin upgrades are done, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to your Plugins section, or choose a different section of your dashboard …
Once all plugins are up-to-date, the update reminders 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 updated!
(When plugins on your site are all up-to-date, notification icons do not display)
Now that you know how to update your inside the admin dashboard, let’s show you how to safely delete plugins safely from your WordPress blog or website.
How To Safely Delete WP Plugins
Occasionally, you may decide to remove WordPress plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This reduces server resources and eliminate causes of problems.
In this section, you will learn how to safely deactivate and delete unused plugins from your WordPress 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 remove a plugin, go to your admin menu and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins screen, 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 show an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, then click on Deactivate before proceeding …
Next, click Delete …
If you want to have a look at 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” section …
The entire list of files associated with the plugin selected for removalwill be listed on your screen …
If you are sure that you want to proceed and delete the plugin files, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugins and related files will be removed from your WordPress installation …
Deleting Multiple WordPress Plugins In Bulk
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 check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …
Next, specify Deactivate from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click Apply …
Your selected plugins will be deactivated …
To delete all or some of the inactive plugins on your site, go to the “Plugins” area and click on the Inactive link in the Plugins menu …
Select all of the plugins you want to delete by either placing a tick next to their check box, or click on the checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select and delete all inactive plugins …
Once you have selected all of the plugins that you want to delete, choose Delete from the Bulk Actions dropdown 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 sure that you want to go ahead and delete all of the selected plugins …
The selected plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Managing WordPress Plugins – Tools
As well as the methods shown above, you can install a range of third-party 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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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)