In a separate blog post, we provide a detailed explanation of what plugins are about and how you can use plugins to easily add new features and functionality to your web site with no software programming skills required.
You can view the article here:
In this tutorial you will learn why plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to easily upgrade and uninstall plugins from your site, and discover useful tools to help you better manage your plugins if you own or manage multiple WordPress sites or blogs.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Many Of Your Plugins Need Updating
New versions of WordPress are frequently being released (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in earlier software versions, and to improve existing features or introduce new functionality to WordPress users.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, you can expect to see at least some new updates for plugins whenever WordPress distributes an updated version.
This is because most WordPress plugins are created by external developers, so sometimes the code in the new WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were built for a previous version. Whenever this happens, conflicts can sometimes develop.
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 updating is needed). All you have to do on your end, is keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is really quick, simple and easy to do.
Keeping your plugins regularly updated and deleting old plugins you no longer need is part of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid potential errors or conflicts.
The WordPress step-by-step tutorial below explains how to upgrade and delete plugins with no coding knowledge or skills needed.
Upgrading And Deleting Plugins Safely In WordPress – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress utilizes several ways to alert users when plugins need updating.
For example, you can instantly see how many plugins are out-of-date from your Admin area by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
In the example below, nine WordPress plugins are out of date and need to be updated …
You can also tell how many plugins need to be updated from your WordPress Notification Toolbar (in the example below, you can see how many plugins need to be updated) …
The Plugins screen (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you how many plugins need updating …
In addition to providing information about plugins that have updates available, the Plugins screen provides links to the plugin download sites and gives you the option to update your plugins individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by showing you how to update WP plugins one at a time.
Upgrading Plugins One At A Time
Always make a full backup of your site files and database before upgrading your blog or website.
In your main menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” screen. This screen can be quite long depending on how many plugins you have installed in your blog …
(Plugins Page)
Notes:
If you have too many plugins installed and would like to reduce the number of plugins showing on your page, 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 page), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
Your Plugins page 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 Plugins” field …
You will see information about plugins in different color backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (active vs. inactive and up-to-date vs. outdated) …
Plugins that need upgrading show the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin] available” …
Locate the plugin that you want to update and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides smooth and simpler plugin updates, so that the process of updating your plugins takes place “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat this process for all plugins on your site that need to be updated, or see the section below if you have a number of plugins that are out-of-date and would like to upgrade them all at once.
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Now that you know how to update one plugin at a time, it’s time to learn how to upgrade many plugins simultaneously.
Bulk-Upgrading Plugins
To update multiple WordPress plugins in one go 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 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 pull-down menu above your plugin table, choose Update …
And then click Apply …
Your selected plugins will automatically begin to update …
Once all updates have been completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to your Plugins area, or choose another section of your dashboard …
Once all plugins are up-to-date, the update reminders 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 site uses the latest version of all plugins, the notification icons no longer display)
Now that you know how to automatically update your in the admin dashboard, let’s show you how to uninstall plugins safely from your WordPress site.
How To Safely Delete WP Plugins
Occasionally, you may choose to delete WordPress plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This decreases resources on your server and also helps to eliminate potential problems.
In this section, you will learn how to deactivate and delete unused plugins from your site.
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 restore your site.
To remove a plugin, go to your admin menu and select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins section, locate the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is deactivated.
Hint: Inactive plugins use a different background color than active plugins and show an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, click on Deactivate before continuing …
Once you have deactivated the plugin, click Delete …
If you need 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” section …
The entire list of files belonging to the plugin selected for removalwill display on your screen …
If you are certain that you would like to go ahead and delete the selected plugin files, just click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugins and related files will be removed from your server …
Bulk-Deleting Plugins
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins, 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 pull-down menu …
Click the Apply button …
Your selected plugins will be deactivated …
Once you have deactivated these plugins, click on the Inactive 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 each plugin you want to delete by checking their individual boxes …
Once you have selected all the plugins that you want deleted, select Delete from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click Apply …
A list of all selected plugins will display 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 sure that you want to go ahead and delete all of the selected plugins …
All plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Managing WP Plugins – Useful Tools
As well as the methods shown above, you can use a number of 3rd-party tools to 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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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)