In another article, we explain what plugins are and how you can use these to enhance your web site’s capabilities.
You can view this article here:
In this tutorial you will learn why plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to safely upgrade and uninstall plugins, and some great plugin management tools if you plan to run multiple WordPress sites or blogs.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why WordPress Plugins Need To Be Upgraded
WordPress frequently updates its software (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in previous 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 plugins every.
The reason for this, is because most WordPress plugins are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes the code in the new WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were created and tested to work with a previous version. When this happens, there is a potential for problems to 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 needed). All you need to do as a WordPress user, is just maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is very easy to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date and removing old plugins you no longer use is an essential aspect of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid potential problems or errors.
The WordPress tutorial below explains how to automatically update and delete plugins safely in WordPress without editing web code.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins – Tutorial
WordPress has several ways to inform you when plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can instantly see how many plugins are out-of-date as soon as you log into your WP Dashboard by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
In the screenshot below, 9 WP plugins are out of date and need to be updated …
You can also see how many plugins need to be updated from your WordPress Administration Toolbar (in the screenshot below, you can again see that nine plugins need updating) …
The Plugins page (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 page provides links to the plugin developer pages and gives you the option to update your plugins individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by learning how to update WordPress plugins individually.
Update Single Plugins
We strongly recommend performing a backup of your website before making any changes to your website or blog.
From your admin menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” screen. The page can be quite lengthy depending on the number of plugins you have added to your site …
(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 page and type in a smaller number of items per page (by default, all plugins display on the screen), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
Your Plugins page will now be made more manageable with a ’numbered pages’ feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Search Plugins” feature …
WordPress displays information about plugins in different backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (inactive vs. active and out-of-date vs up-to-date) …
Plugins in need of updating display the following 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 provides streamlined plugin updates, so that the process of updating your plugins takes place “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins screen …
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 bulk.
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Now that you know how to upgrade one WordPress plugin at a time, it’s time to learn how to update several WP plugins simultaneously.
Bulk-Updating WP Plugins
To bulk-update WordPress plugins simultaneously from your admin area, go to the “Plugins” area and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Tick the checkbox in 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 your plugin table, choose Update …
Click Apply …
Your selected plugins will automatically begin updating …
Once your plugins have all been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to the Plugins section, or select a different section of your dashboard …
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) …
All plugins are now up-to-date!
(When plugins on your site are all up-to-date, notification icons do not display)
Now that you know how to update inside your WP dashboard, let’s take a look at how to remove plugins from your WordPress site or blog.
How To Safely Remove Plugins
As part of good WordPress blog management practice, it’s a good idea to delete plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This helps to conserve server resources and help you avoid potential problems.
In this section, we show you how to remove unused plugins from your blog or site.
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 restore your site.
To remove a plugin, go to your main menu and select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins area, find the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is deactivated.
Hint: Inactive plugins are listed in a different colored background than active plugins and display an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, then click on Deactivate before going any further …
Once you have deactivated the plugin, click Delete …
If you want to browse all the files that will be deleted before going ahead, 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 selected for removalwill be listed on your screen …
If you are positively sure that you would like to go ahead and delete the selected plugin files, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugin(s) will be deleted …
How To Safely Bulk-Delete WordPress Plugins
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 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 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 drop down menu …
Click Apply …
All 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 on the main menu …
Click the checkbox in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to remove by checking its box …
Once you have selected all the plugins that you want deleted, specify Delete from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click the Apply button …
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 absolutely sure that you would like to proceed to the next step and remove all of the selected plugins …
The plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Tools For Managing WordPress Plugins
In addition to the methods shown above, you can install a number 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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