In a previous post, we provide an overview of what WordPress plugins are all about and how you can use plugins to easily expand your web site’s capabilities.
You can view the article here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn why WordPress plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to safely update and uninstall plugins from your site, and discover some great plugin management tips if you need to run multiple WordPress sites.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Many Of Your Plugins Need Updating
New versions of WordPress are regularly released (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, there will typically be new updates for WordPress plugins each time a new version of WordPress is announced.
This is because most WordPress plugins are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes code or features in the newly-released WordPress version conflict with plugins that were developed and tested with a previous version. Whenever this happens, issues can sometimes occur.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are very proactive when it comes to ensuring that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if updating is needed). All you have to do on your end, is just keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is very simple and easy to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins regularly updated and deleting old plugins you no longer need is part of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid any conflicts and errors.
The WordPress tutorial below explains how to automatically update and delete WordPress plugins in the dashboard without touching web code.
How To Automatically Upgrade And Delete Plugins Inside The Dashboard – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress has a few methods to let users know when plugins need updating.
For example, you can instantly see how many plugins need updating inside your Admin area just by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, you can see that 9 WordPress plugins need to be updated …
You can also view how many plugins need to be updated from your WordPress Notification Toolbar (the screenshot below shows that several plugins should be brought up to date) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also provides information about plugins that need updating …
In addition to providing information about which plugins have available updates, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin developer pages and gives you the option to update your plugins instantly …
Let’s start by learning how to upgrade one plugin at a time.
Updating WordPress Plugins Individually
We recommend making a full backup of your website before upgrading your website.
From your WP admin menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” area. This screen can be quite long depending on the number of plugins you have installed in your blog …
(Plugins Page)
Useful Info:
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 the ‘Apply’ button …
Your Plugins area will now be reduced in size with a pagination feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Plugin Search” box …
You will see information about plugins in different color backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (inactive vs. active and up-to-date vs. out-of-date) …
Plugins in need of updating have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Insert Plugin Name] available” …
Select 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 process, so that the process of updating your plugins happens “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat this 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 them all at once.
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Now that you know how to update WP plugins one at a time, let’s show you how to bulk-update WP plugins.
Bulk-Upgrading Plugins
To bulk-update WP plugins simultaneously from your admin area, go to the “Plugins” area 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 only the plugins you want to update by checking its box …
In the Bulk Actions dropdown menu above the list of plugins, choose Update …
And then click Apply …
Your selected plugins will begin the update process …
Once all plugin updates are finished, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to the Plugins screen, or choose another option from the admin menu …
Once your plugins are all 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) …
All plugins are now up-to-date!
(When your site uses the latest version of all plugins, update messages disappear)
Now that you know how to automatically upgrade in your WP dashboard, let’s take a look at how to delete plugins safely from your blog or website.
Deleting Plugins
It’s a good idea to uninstall inactive plugins. This conserves resource usage and also will help you avoid potential problems.
In this section, we show you how to remove unused plugins from your WordPress blog or site.
Always create 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 main 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 are listed in a different background color than active plugins and display an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, click on Deactivate before continuing with your plugin deletion …
Click Delete …
If you need to review a list of 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” page …
All files associated with the plugin selected for removalwill be listed on your screen …
If you are positively sure that you want to proceed and delete the selected plugin, just click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugin(s) will be deleted …
How To Safely Delete Several Plugins At Once
You can delete all inactive plugins at once, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be cleared.
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 checkbox, 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, choose Deactivate from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click the Apply button …
Your selected plugins will be deactivated …
To delete all or some of the inactive plugins on your site, go to the “Plugins” screen 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 checkbox, or click on the checkbox 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, select 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 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 …
Managing WP Plugins
As well as the methods shown above, you can install a number of 3rd-party 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.
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