In another article, we provide an overview of what plugins are all about and how you can use plugins to add new features to your blog with no coding skills required.
You can read the article here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn why plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to easily update and delete plugins, and practical plugin management tips if you plan to manage multiple WordPress sites or blogs.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Your WordPress Plugins Need Updating
WordPress regularly updates its software (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in earlier software 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 updates for WordPress plugins each time a new WordPress version is made available.
The reason for this, is because most plugins for WordPress are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes the code in the new WordPress version conflict with plugins that were developed and tested with 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 quite proactive when it comes to ensuring that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if required). All you need to do on your end, is just maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is really quick, simple and easy to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins regularly updated and removing old plugins you no longer need is part of good WordPress management and helps to avoid errors or conflicts.
The WordPress step-by-step tutorial below explains how to automatically upgrade and delete plugins in WordPress without touching web code.
Updating And Deleting Plugins From The Dashboard – Tutorial
WordPress provides several ways to let users know when plugins on their site need to be updated.
For example, you can tell immediately how many plugins are out-of-date from your WordPress Dashboard just by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, you can see that nine WordPress plugins need updating …
You can also tell how many plugins need updating from your WP Notification Toolbar (in the screenshot below, you can again see that 9 plugins need updating) …
The Plugins screen (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also provides information about plugins that need to be updated …
As well as providing information about plugins that have updates available, the Plugins page provides links to the plugin developer sites and gives you the option to update the plugins with one-click …
Let’s start by learning how to upgrade WP plugins one at a time.
Upgrading Individual Plugins
Always make a backup of your website before upgrading your website.
In your main menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” area. The list of plugins can flow down your screen for some length, depending on how many plugins you have added to your site …
(Plugins Screen)
Useful Information:
If you have too many plugins and would like to make this section more manageable, 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 Apply …
Your Plugins page will now be reduced in size with a page scrolling 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 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” …
Select 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 happens “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat this process for any other plugins on your site that need updating, or refer to the section below if you have several plugins that are out-of-date and would like to upgrade them all in one simple operation.
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Now that you know how to update one plugin at a time, let’s show you how to bulk-update WP plugins.
How To Update Many WordPress Plugins
To bulk-upgrade WP plugins simultaneously 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 checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to upgrade by checking its box …
In the Bulk Actions drop down menu above the list of plugins, select Update …
Click Apply …
Your selected plugins will update all at once …
After the update process has completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to the Plugins area, or choose another option from the admin menu …
Once your plugins are all up-to-date, the plugin notifications disappear (i.e. the “at-a-glance” indicators and “There is a new version of XYZ plugin available” messages no longer display on your screen, toolbar and menus) …
You have updated all plugins on your site to their latest version!
(When your site uses the latest version of all plugins, update messages disappear)
Now that you know how to automatically upgrade WP inside the admin dashboard, let’s take a look at how to safely delete plugins safely from your blog or website.
How To Safely Remove Plugins
It’s a good idea to delete inactive plugins. This can conserve resources on your server and help to minimize potential problems.
In this section, you will learn how to safely remove unused plugins from your WordPress site.
We strongly recommend creating 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 admin menu and select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins area, locate the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is deactivated.
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 …
Once you have deactivated the plugin, click Delete …
If you need to browse 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 delete will display on your screen …
If you are positively sure that you would like to go ahead and delete these plugin files, just click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugins and related files will be removed from your server …
Deleting Multiple WP Plugins At Once
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 currently 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 check box, or selecting the check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …
Next, specify Deactivate from the Bulk Actions pull-down 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 on the main menu …
Click on the checkbox in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to delete by checking its box …
Once you have ticked all the check boxes next to the plugins that you want to delete, choose Delete from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click the Apply button …
A list of all selected plugins will display 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 would like to go ahead and delete all of the selected plugins …
The plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
WordPress Management Tools For WordPress Plugins
As well as the methods shown above, you can install a range of 3rd-party tools 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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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now