In a separate article, we provide an overview of what plugins are about and how you can use plugins to extend your website’s functionality.
You can view the article here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping your plugins up-to-date, how to upgrade and remove plugins, and discover practical plugin management tools.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Many WordPress Plugins Need Upgrading
New versions of WordPress are frequently being released (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in older software releases, and to improve existing features.
Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, there will typically be new new update notifications for plugins each time a new WordPress version is announced.
This is because most WordPress plugins are created by external developers, so sometimes the code in the new WordPress version conflict with plugins that were built for a previous version. Whenever this happens, there is a potential for issues to sometimes occur.
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 updating is needed). All you need to do on your end, is simply maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is very 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 conflicts or errors.
The step-by-step tutorial below explains how to update and delete plugins in WordPress without requiring coding knowledge or skills.
Upgrading And Deleting Plugins Safely In Your WordPress Admin Dashboard – Tutorial
WordPress provides several ways to let you know when plugins on your blog need to be updated.
For example, you can tell immediately how many plugins need to be updated 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For example, in the screenshot below, you can see that 9 plugins are out of date and need to be updated …
You can also check how many plugins need to be updated from your WP Administration Toolbar (as shown below, a number of 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 section provides links to the plugin developer sites and gives you the option to update the plugin instantly …
Let’s start by showing you how to upgrade WP plugins one at a time.
Upgrading Plugins Individually
We recommend making a full backup of your site files and database before making any updates to your website.
In your admin menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” area. The list of plugins can be quite lengthy depending on the number of plugins you have installed in your site …
(WordPress Plugins Section)
Tips:
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 area 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 section will now be made more manageable with a page scrolling 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 backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (active vs. inactive and up-to-date vs. out-of-date) …
Plugins that need upgrading show the following 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 updating your plugins happens with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat the above process for any other plugins on your site that need to be updated, or refer to the section below if you have many plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update all plugins in bulk.
***
Now that you know how to update one WP plugin at a time, let’s show you how to bulk-upgrade plugins.
Bulk-Upgrading Plugins
To bulk-upgrade WP plugins using the automatic upgrade feature, 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 next to 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 dropdown menu above the plugin list, choose Update …
And then click Apply …
Your selected plugins will all be updated at once …
After all upgrades are done, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to the Plugins area, or choose another option from the WP 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” 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 or blog uses the latest version of all plugins, update messages disappear)
Now that you know how to update WordPress plugins, let’s show you how to safely delete plugins safely from your WordPress site.
How To Delete Plugins
As part of good blog management practices, it’s a good idea to delete inactive plugins. This helps to reduce server resources and also eliminate causes of some problems.
In this section, you will learn how to delete unused plugins from your site.
We strongly recommend creating 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 remove a plugin, go to your WP admin menu and select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins area, locate the plugin you want to delete 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 going any further …
Click on Delete …
If you would like to browse 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 …
All files associated with the plugin that you are about to delete will display on your screen …
If you are absolutely sure that you want to go ahead and delete the plugin files, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugin(s) will be removed from your server …
How To Safely Delete Multiple WordPress Plugins At Once
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins on your site, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be cleared.
Note: To delete any plugins that are currently active, you 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) …
Once you have done this, specify Deactivate from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click the Apply button …
The 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 in the Plugins menu …
Click on the checkbox next to 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 selected all the plugins that you want deleted, specify Delete from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click Apply …
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 would like to proceed to the next step and remove all of the plugins listed …
All plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Plugin Management – Useful WordPress Tools
In addition to the methods shown above, you can install Free and Paid WordPress plugins that let you 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.
***
"Your training is the best in the world! It is simple, yet detailed, direct, understandable, memorable, and complete." Andrea Adams, FinancialJourney.org