In another blog post, we provide a detailed explanation of what plugins are all about and how you can use these to easily add new features and functionality to your site with no software programming skills required.
To view this article, go here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date, how to automatically update and delete plugins from your site, and discover some plugin management tools if you plan to manage multiple WordPress sites or blogs.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Many Plugins Need To Be Upgraded
New versions of WordPress are regularly released (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in older versions, and to improve existing features or introduce new ones.
Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, you can expect to see at least some new new update notices for WordPress plugins each time a new WordPress version is made available.
The reason for this, is because most WordPress plugins are created by external developers, so sometimes the code in the new WordPress version conflicts 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 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 just keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is really simple and easy to do.
Keeping your plugins regularly updated and deleting old plugins you no longer use is part of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid any potential errors or problems.
The tutorial below explains how to upgrade and delete plugins in your dashboard with no web programming skills or knowledge required.
Updating And Deleting Plugins Safely Inside Your WordPress Admin Dashboard – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress has several methods to alert you when plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can see ‘at a glance’ how many plugins are out-of-date from your Administration panel simply by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
In the example below, nine WordPress plugins need updating …
You can also check how many plugins need to be updated from your WP Notification Toolbar (as shown below, a number of plugins should be brought up to date) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also lets you know which plugins need to be updated …
As well as 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 your plugin individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by learning how to upgrade one WP plugin at a time.
Update Single Plugins
Always make a backup of your data and files before updating your blog or website.
In your dashboard menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” screen will display in your browser. The list of plugins can go down your page for some length, depending on the number of plugins you have added to your site …
(Plugins Page)
Notes:
If you have too many plugins installed and would like to reduce the number of plugins displaying 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 (all plugins show on the screen by default), then click Apply …
Your Plugins section 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” feature …
WordPress displays information about plugins in different backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (active vs. inactive and up-to-date vs. out-of-date) …
Plugins that need updating have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin] available” …
Find the plugin that you want to update and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides streamlined plugin updates, so that the process of updating your plugins happens with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat the above process for all plugins on your site that need to be updated, or refer to the section below if you have several plugins that are out-of-date and would like to upgrade all plugins in bulk.
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Now that you know how to update individual WordPress plugins, it’s time to learn how to upgrade a bunch of plugins simultaneously.
Bulk-Upgrading Plugins
To bulk-upgrade plugins from your admin area, go to the “Plugins” screen and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Click on 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 its box …
In the Bulk Actions drop-down menu above your plugin list, choose Update …
And then click Apply …
Your selected plugins will all be updated at once …
Once all upgrades are completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to the Plugins screen, or select a different section of your dashboard …
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 on your screen, toolbar and menus) …
All plugins are now up-to-date!
(When your plugins are up-to-date, update messages disappear)
Now that you know how to automatically update your in the dashboard, it’s time to learn how to safely delete plugins from your site.
How To Remove Plugins
It’s a good idea to remove plugins that you no longer use. This helps to decrease resources on your server and help to reduce problems.
In this section, we show you how to uninstall unused plugins from your blog or 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 restore your site.
To remove a plugin, go to your WP admin menu and select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins section, locate the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is inactive.
Hint: Inactive plugins are listed in 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 Delete …
If you need to browse 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 …
A complete list of files associated with the plugin that you are about to remove will display on your screen …
If you are positively certain that you would like to go ahead and delete these plugin, then click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugin(s) will be deleted …
Deleting Several WP Plugins Simultaneously
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 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) …
Once you have done this, specify Deactivate from the Bulk Actions pull-down 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 on the main menu …
Tick the checkbox in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to delete by checking its box …
Once you have ticked all the check boxes next to the plugins that you want to delete, select Delete from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click the Apply button …
A list of all selected plugins will display 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 selected plugins …
The plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Managing Plugins
In addition to the methods shown above, you can use Free and Paid WordPress plugins 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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"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