In a previous blog post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use plugins to easily expand your blog’s capabilities.
You can view the article here:
In this tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping WordPress plugins up-to-date, how to automatically update and uninstall plugins, and practical plugin management tips if you currently own or manage multiple WordPress sites or blogs.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Some Of Your WordPress Plugins Need To Be Upgraded
New WordPress versions are constantly being 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 have installed on your site, you can expect to see at least some new new update notices for plugins each time a new version of WordPress is announced.
This is because most plugins for WordPress are created by external developers, so sometimes code in the newly-released WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were built for a previous version. Whenever this happens, there is a potential for conflicts to sometimes develop.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are very proactive when it comes to making sure that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if required). All you have to do as a WordPress user, is just maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is really simple to do.
Keeping your plugins regularly updated and removing old plugins you no longer need is an essential aspect of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid any errors or problems.
The WordPress step-by-step tutorial below explains how to upgrade and delete WordPress plugins without touching web code.
How To Upgrade And Delete Plugins Safely – Tutorial
WordPress employs a few methods to alert users when plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can tell immediately how many plugins need updating as soon as you log into your WP Dashboard by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, you can see that nine plugins are out of date and need updating …
You can also tell how many plugins need updating from your WordPress Admin Toolbar (as shown below, 9 plugins need to be updated) …
The Plugins screen (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also lets you know which plugins need to be updated …
In addition to providing information about plugins that have updates available, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin developer pages and gives you the option to update the plugin with one-click …
Let’s start by learning how to update one WP plugin at a time.
How To Upgrade Plugins Individually
We recommend performing a full backup of your site files and database before updating your website.
From your WP admin menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” screen will display in your browser. The table of plugins can go down your page for a while, depending on how many plugins you have added to your blog …
(WordPress Plugins Page)
Useful Information:
If you have too many plugins installed and would like to make this section more manageable, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins screen and enter a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show up on the screen by default, i.e. “999”), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
Your Plugins page will now be reduced in size with a ’numbered pages’ feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Search Installed Plugins” feature …
WordPress displays information about plugins in different color backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (active vs. inactive and outdated vs up-to-date) …
Plugins that require upgrading show the following 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 plugin update process, so that the process of updating your plugins takes place with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat the above process for all plugins on your site that need updating, or see the section below if you have a number of plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update all plugins at once.
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Now that you know how to update one plugin at a time, let’s show you how to bulk-upgrade plugins.
Bulk-Updating Plugins
To upgrade multiple WordPress plugins in one go from your admin area, go to the “Plugins” page 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 their individual boxes …
In the Bulk Actions pull-down menu above the plugin table, select Update …
Click Apply …
Your selected plugins will begin updating …
Once all updates are done, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to the Plugins area, or select another option from the dashboard menu …
Once your plugins are all up-to-date, the plugin notifications will 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!
(When your plugins are up-to-date, update notices disappear)
Now that you know how to upgrade your in the WP dashboard, let’s show you how to remove plugins from your WordPress blog or website.
How To Delete WordPress Plugins
Occasionally, you may decide to delete plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This helps to reduce resources on your server and help you avoid problems.
In this section, you will learn how to safely delete unused plugins from your site or blog.
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 remove a plugin, go to your WP admin menu and choose Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins area, locate the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is inactive.
Hint: Inactive plugins appear in a different background color than active plugins and show an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, then click on Deactivate before going any further …
Next, click Delete …
If you would like to have a look at 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” page …
All files belonging to the plugin selected for removalwill display on your screen …
If you are certain about going ahead and deleting the plugin files, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugins and related files will be deleted …
Bulk-Deleting WordPress Plugins
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be deleted.
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) …
Next, select Deactivate from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click Apply …
The selected plugins will be deactivated …
To delete all or some of the inactive plugins, go to the “Plugins” area 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 check box, 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 checkboxes next to the plugins that you want to delete, choose 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 plugins listed …
Your plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Tools For Managing Plugins
As well as the methods shown above, you can install a range of 3rd-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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