In a separate article, we explain what plugins are and how you can use these to easily extend your web 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 easily upgrade and remove your WordPress plugins, and discover practical tools to help you better manage your plugins if you manage multiple WordPress sites.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Many Of Your WordPress Plugins Need Frequent Upgrading
New WordPress versions are regularly released (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in older 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 notifications for WordPress plugins each time a new WordPress version is released.
This is because most WordPress plugins are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes 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 develop.
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 needed). All you need to do on your end, is maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is very simple, quick and easy to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins regularly updated and removing old plugins you no longer need is an essential aspect of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid potential problems and errors.
The tutorial below explains how to automatically upgrade and delete plugins from the dashboard without editing web code.
Upgrading And Deleting Plugins Safely From Your Dashboard – Tutorial
WordPress employs a few methods to let you know when plugins on your blog need to be updated.
For example, you can tell immediately how many plugins are out-of-date from your Admin area just by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, you can see that nine WordPress plugins have older versions that need to be updated …
You can also check how many plugins need to be updated from your WP Notification Toolbar (as shown below, 9 plugins should be updated) …
The Plugins screen (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also lets you know which plugins need updating …
As well as providing information about plugins that have updates available, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin developer sites and gives you the option to update the plugin instantly …
Let’s start by showing you how to upgrade individual WP plugins.
Upgrading WordPress Plugins One At A Time
Always make a full backup of your site files and database before making any changes to your blog or website.
From your WP admin menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” area. The list of plugins can run down your page for a while, depending on the number of plugins you have added to your blog …
(The WordPress Plugins Page)
Additional Info:
If you have too many plugins installed and would like to reduce the number of plugins displayed on the page, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins area and type in a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show up on the screen by default), then click Apply …
Your Plugins page 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” box …
You will see plugin information in different backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (inactive vs. active and up-to-date vs. outdated) …
Plugins that need updating have a distinctive 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 the process of 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 a number of plugins that are out-of-date and would like to upgrade all plugins at the same time.
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Now that you know how to update individual WP plugins, it’s time to learn how to bulk-upgrade WordPress plugins.
How To Bulk-Update Plugins
To upgrade multiple WordPress plugins in one go 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 …
Tick the check box 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 drop down menu above your plugin table, choose Update …
And then click Apply …
Your selected plugins will update all at once …
Once all updates are completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to the Plugins area, or visit 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” 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 alerts disappear)
Now that you know how to upgrade in the admin dashboard, let’s show you how to safely delete plugins from your WordPress site.
Deleting Plugins
It’s a good idea to uninstall plugins that you no longer plan to use. This decreases resource usage and also help to minimize causes of problems.
In this section, you will learn how to deactivate and delete unused plugins from your WordPress site or blog.
Always create a full back up of your WordPress 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 screen, find the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is inactive.
Hint: Inactive plugins have a different colored background than active plugins and display an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, then click on Deactivate before proceeding with your plugin deletion …
Next, click Delete …
If you want to have a look at 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 …
The entire list of files belonging to the plugin that you are about to remove will display on your screen …
If you are absolutely sure about going ahead and deleting the selected plugin files, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugin(s) will be deleted …
How To Safely Delete Several Plugins In Bulk
You can delete all inactive plugins at once, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be deleted.
Note: To delete any plugins that are presently 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 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 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 …
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 delete by checking their individual boxes …
Once you have selected all the plugins that you want deleted, choose Delete from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click the Apply button …
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 absolutely sure that you want to proceed to the next step and delete all of the selected plugins …
The plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Managing Plugins
As well as the methods shown above, you can use Free and Paid WordPress plugins that help you manage your 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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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)