In a previous post, we provide an overview of what WordPress plugins are about and how you can use these to add new features to your site with no software programming skills required.
You can read this article here:
In this tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping plugins up-to-date, how to update and uninstall your WordPress plugins, and some tips to help you better manage your plugins.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Some WordPress Plugins Need Regular Upgrading
WordPress regularly updates its software (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in older software versions, as well as to improve existing features.
Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, there will typically be new updates for WordPress plugins whenever WordPress releases a new version.
This is because most plugins for WordPress are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes the 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 problems to sometimes occur.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are very proactive when it comes to ensuring that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if required). All you have to do on your end, is just keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is really simple to do.
Keeping your plugins up-to-date and removing old plugins you no longer need is an essential aspect of good WordPress management and helps to avoid any errors and conflicts.
The step-by-step tutorial below explains how to upgrade and delete plugins in your WP admin dashboard without editing web code.
How To Automatically Update And Delete Plugins From The Dashboard – Tutorial
WordPress utilizes a number of different methods to inform you when plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can immediately see how many plugins need updating from your WordPress Dashboard by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
In the screenshot below, you can see that 9 plugins have older versions that need to be updated …
You can also tell how many plugins need to be updated from your WordPress Toolbar (as shown below, several plugins need updating) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also provides information about plugins that need updating …
In addition to providing information about which plugins have available updates, the Plugins screen provides links to the plugin developer pages and gives you the option to update the plugins with one-click …
Let’s start by learning how to update individual WordPress plugins.
How To Update WordPress Plugins One At A Time
Always make a backup of your site files and database before updating your website.
In your WP admin menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” screen. The table of plugins can flow down your page for a while, depending on the number of plugins you have added to your blog …
(Plugins Section)
Useful Info:
If you have too many plugins and would like to reduce the number of plugins displaying on your screen, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins screen and type in a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show up on the page by default, i.e. “999”), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
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” box …
You will see plugin information in different color backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (inactive vs. active and up-to-date vs. outdated) …
Plugins in need of upgrading have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Insert Plugin Name] available” …
Locate 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 updating process, so that the process of updating your plugins happens “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat the above process for all 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 update all plugins at the same time.
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Now that you know how to upgrade one WordPress plugin at a time, let’s show you how to update many plugins simultaneously.
How To Upgrade Multiple Plugins
To bulk-upgrade WordPress plugins directly inside your dashboard, go to the “Plugins” screen and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Tick the checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to upgrade by checking their individual boxes …
In the Bulk Actions dropdown menu above the list of plugins, choose Update …
Click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will begin to update automatically …
After all plugin upgrades are done, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to the Plugins screen, or go to a different 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” notices no longer display on your screen, toolbar and menus) …
All plugins are now up-to-date!
(When plugins on your site are up-to-date, the notification icons do not display)
Now that you know how to automatically update WordPress plugins, it’s time to learn how to delete plugins safely from your blog or website.
How To Safely Remove WP Plugins
As part of good WordPress 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 to reduce resources on your server and eliminate potential problems.
In this section, you will learn how to delete unused plugins from your blog or 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 restore your site.
To delete a plugin, go to your admin menu and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins section, 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 display an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, click on Deactivate before continuing …
Next, click on Delete …
If you need 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” screen …
The entire list of files belonging to the plugin that you are about to remove will be listed on your screen …
If you are sure that you want to go ahead and delete the selected plugin, then click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugin(s) will be removed from your WordPress installation …
Deleting Several WP Plugins At Once
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 currently 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 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, specify Deactivate from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click Apply …
All selected plugins will be deactivated …
To delete all or some of the inactive plugins on your site, go to the “Plugins” page and click on the Inactive link on the main menu …
Tick the checkbox in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to delete by checking their individual boxes …
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 show up 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 plugins listed …
Your selected plugins will be deleted …
Practical Management Tools For WordPress Plugins
As well as the methods shown above, you can install a number 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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"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