In a separate post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use these to add new features to your website or blog without touching code.
You can view this article here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn why plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to upgrade and remove plugins from your site, and discover some plugin management tips if you need to run multiple WordPress sites or blogs.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Plugins Need Regular Upgrading
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 notifications for plugins when new versions of WordPress are announced.
This is because most plugins for WordPress are created by external developers, so sometimes code or features in the newly-released WordPress version conflict with plugins that were developed for a previous version. Whenever this happens, there is a potential for issues 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 updating is required). All you need to do as a WordPress user, is simply maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is really simple, quick and easy to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins regularly updated and removing old plugins you no longer use is part of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid any errors and conflicts.
The WordPress step-by-step tutorial below explains how to automatically update and delete plugins in your WP admin dashboard without requiring web coding skills or knowledge.
How To Upgrade And Delete WordPress Plugins Safely – Tutorial
WordPress uses a few ways to let you know when plugins on your site need updating.
For example, you can immediately see how many plugins need to be updated as soon as you log into your Site’s Dashboard by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
In the example below, you can see that nine plugins need updating …
You can also view how many plugins need to be updated from your WordPress Admin Toolbar (in the screenshot below, you can again see that 9 plugins need updating) …
The Plugins page (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you what plugins need to be updated …
In addition to providing information about plugins that have available updates, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin developer pages and gives you the option to update your plugin instantly …
Let’s start by learning how to upgrade plugins one at a time.
Upgrade Individual WordPress Plugins
Always make a backup of your website before upgrading your website.
From your WP admin menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” page. The page can be quite lengthy depending on how many plugins you have added to your blog …
(Plugins Section)
Additional Info:
If you have too many plugins and would like to reduce the number of plugins showing on your 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 page), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
Your Plugins section 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 information about plugins in different backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (inactive vs. active and outdated vs up-to-date) …
Plugins in need of upgrading display the following 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 takes place with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat the above process for all plugins on your site that need updating, or see the section below if you have many plugins that are out-of-date and would like to upgrade them all in bulk.
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Now that you know how to update individual plugins, let’s show you how to update a bunch of WP plugins simultaneously.
Bulk-Upgrading Plugins
To update multiple WP plugins in one go 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 …
Tick the check box in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to update by checking their individual boxes …
In the Bulk Actions pull-down menu at the top of the page, choose Update …
Click Apply …
Your selected plugins will begin the update process …
Once all plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to the Plugins screen, or choose another section of your dashboard …
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” messages 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, update icons disappear)
Now that you know how to automatically update your plugins, let’s take a look at how to remove plugins safely from your WordPress blog or website.
Deleting WP Plugins
Occasionally, you may choose to delete WordPress plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This can help reduce resource usage and will help you avoid problems.
In this section, we show you how to safely 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 delete a plugin, go to your admin menu and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins screen, locate the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is inactive.
Hint: Inactive plugins use a different colored background than active plugins and show an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, click on Deactivate before proceeding …
Next, click Delete …
If you would like to review a list of all the files that will be deleted before taking the next step, 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 belonging to the plugin selected for removalwill be listed on your screen …
If you are absolutely certain that you would like to go ahead and delete the selected plugin files, then click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugin(s) will be deleted …
How To Delete Multiple Plugins In Bulk
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 presently active, your will 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 check box 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 …
All selected plugins will be deactivated …
To delete all or some of the inactive plugins, 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, 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 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 absolutely certain that you want to go ahead and delete all of the plugins listed …
All plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
WordPress Plugin Management – Tools
As well as the methods shown above, you can install Free and Paid WordPress plugins 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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