In another post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use these to easily add new features to your blog with no coding skills required.
To view this article, go here:
In this tutorial you will learn why plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to automatically update and uninstall plugins, and useful plugin management tips.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Your Plugins Need Upgrading
New versions of WordPress are regularly released (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in older versions, and to improve existing features.
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 every.
This is because most plugins for WordPress are created by third-party developers, so sometimes features in the new WordPress version conflict with plugins that were developed for a previous version. When this happens, issues can sometimes develop.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are fairly 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 need to do on your end, is just maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is really simple and easy to do.
Keeping your plugins regularly updated and deleting old plugins you no longer use is an essential aspect of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid any problems or errors.
The step-by-step tutorial below explains how to automatically upgrade and delete WordPress plugins safely with no web programming knowledge or skills needed.
Updating And Deleting Plugins Safely Inside The Dashboard – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress has a number of different methods to notify you when plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can see how many plugins need updating inside your Administration panel by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
In the example below, you can see that nine plugins are out of date and need to be updated …
You can also see how many plugins need updating from your WordPress Admin Toolbar (in the example below, you can see how many plugins need to be updated) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you how many plugins 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 your plugins with one-click …
Let’s start by showing you how to upgrade individual plugins.
How To Update Plugins Individually
Always make a backup of your website before upgrading your website.
From your dashboard menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” area. This table of plugins can be quite lengthy depending on how many plugins you have installed in your blog …
(WordPress Plugins Section)
Tips:
If you have too many plugins 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 page 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 “Search Installed Plugins” box …
You will see information about plugins in different color backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (active vs. inactive and outdated vs up-to-date) …
Plugins in need of upgrading have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [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 updating your plugins takes place “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat the above process for any other plugins on your site that need to be updated, or see the section below if you have many 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 upgrade one WP plugin at a time, let’s show you how to update multiple plugins simultaneously.
Bulk-Upgrading Plugins
To bulk-update plugins directly inside your dashboard, go to the “Plugins” area and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Click 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 drop down menu above the plugin table, choose Update …
And then click Apply …
Your selected plugins will automatically begin updating …
After your plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to the Plugins screen, or choose another option from the sidebar menu …
Once your plugins are all 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) …
You have updated all plugins on your site to their latest version!
(When your site or blog uses the latest version of all plugins, notification icons no longer display)
Now that you know how to automatically update in the admin dashboard, let’s show you how to delete plugins safely from your site.
How To Safely Remove Plugins
As part of smart site management, it’s a good idea to uninstall plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This can help decrease server resources and help you avoid causes of some problems.
In this section, we show you how to safely deactivate and delete unused plugins from your WordPress 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 reinstall your site.
To delete a plugin, go to your WP admin menu and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins area, locate the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is deactivated.
Hint: Inactive plugins use a different background color than active plugins and show an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, click on Deactivate before proceeding …
Click Delete …
If you need to review a list of 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” page …
All files associated with the plugin selected for deletionwill be listed on your screen …
If you are sure about going ahead and deleting the plugin files, just click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugin(s) will be deleted from your WordPress installation …
Deleting Several WordPress Plugins At Once
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins on your site, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be deleted.
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 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, 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, go to the “Plugins” section 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 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 to delete, select Delete from the Bulk Actions drop-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 would like to go ahead and delete all of the selected plugins …
Your plugins will be deleted …
Useful Management Tools For Plugins
As well as the methods shown above, you can install a range of third-party tools to 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