In another article, we explain what plugins are and how you can use plugins to add new features to your website with no coding knowledge required.
To read the article, go here:
In this tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping your plugins up-to-date, how to easily update and delete your WordPress plugins, and discover some great tools to help you better manage your plugins.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Some Plugins Need To Be Upgraded
New versions of WordPress are regularly released (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in older versions, as well as to improve existing features.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, you can expect to see at least some new updates for WordPress plugins each time a new version of WordPress is announced.
The reason for this, is because most WordPress plugins are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes code in the newly-released WordPress version conflict with plugins that were created and tested to work with a previous version. Whenever this happens, there is a potential for conflicts to sometimes occur.
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 this is required). All you have to do as a website owner, is just maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is really simple 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 conflicts and errors.
The WordPress step-by-step tutorial below explains how to update and delete plugins safely without editing web code.
Updating And Deleting Plugins Safely – Tutorial
WordPress provides several methods to inform users when plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can instantly see how many plugins are out-of-date inside your WP Dashboard simply by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
In the screenshot below, nine WordPress plugins need updating …
You can also view how many plugins need to be updated from your WP Notification Toolbar (in the example below, you can see how many plugins need to be updated) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also provides information about plugins that need to be updated …
In addition to providing information about plugins that have available updates, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin developer pages and gives you the option to update the plugin with one-click …
Let’s start by showing you how to update plugins individually.
Upgrading Plugins Individually
We strongly recommend performing a complete backup of your website before updating your website.
In your main menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” page will display in your browser. The table of plugins can flow down your page for some length, depending on the number of plugins you have added to your blog …
(WordPress Plugins Screen)
Tips:
If you have too many plugins installed and would like to reduce the number of plugins showing on the 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 (by default, all plugins display on the page), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
Your Plugins area 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 “Plugin Search” feature …
WordPress displays plugin information in different color backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (active vs. inactive and up-to-date vs. out-of-date) …
Plugins that require updating show the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Insert 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 area …
Repeat this process for any other plugins on your site that need updating, or see the section below if you have a number of plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update all plugins in one simple operation.
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Now that you know how to update one WordPress plugin at a time, the next step is to learn how to bulk-update WordPress plugins.
Bulk-Updating WordPress Plugins
To bulk-update WordPress plugins using the automatic updating feature, go to the “Plugins” page and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Click the checkbox in 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 pull-down menu above the list of plugins, choose Update …
Click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will automatically begin to update …
Once your plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to the Plugins area, or choose another section of your dashboard …
Once all plugins are 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” 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 do not display)
Now that you know how to automatically update your plugins, it’s time to learn how to remove plugins safely from your site or blog.
How To Safely Delete WP Plugins
As part of good blog management, it’s a good idea to delete plugins that you no longer plan to use. This reduces server resources and help to eliminate causes of some problems.
In this section, you will learn how to safely deactivate and delete unused plugins from your WordPress site or blog.
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 delete a plugin, go to your dashboard menu and choose Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins area, find the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is inactive.
Hint: Inactive plugins have 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 going any further …
Click on Delete …
If you need to browse all the files that will be deleted before proceeding any further, 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 deletionwill be listed on your screen …
If you are positively certain about going ahead and deleting these plugin files, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugins and related files will be deleted from your WordPress installation …
How To Delete Multiple WP Plugins In Bulk
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 presently 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 checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …
Next, specify Deactivate from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click the Apply button …
All selected plugins will be deactivated …
Once you have deactivated your plugins, click on the Inactive link on the menu at the top of the page …
Click on the check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to delete by checking their individual boxes …
Once you have selected all of the plugins that you want to delete, specify 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 absolutely certain that you want to go ahead and remove all of the selected plugins …
All 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 WordPress plugins that let 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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"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)