In a previous post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use these to easily add new features or functionality to your blog with no coding skills required.
To read the article, go here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping all WordPress plugins up-to-date, how to automatically update and uninstall your WordPress plugins, and useful tools to help you better manage your plugins if you currently run multiple WordPress sites or blogs.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Some Plugins Need Updating
WordPress regularly updates its software (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in earlier releases, as well as 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 new update notices for WordPress plugins when WordPress distributes an updated version.
The reason for this, is because most plugins for WordPress are created by external developers, so sometimes the code in the newly-released WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were created and tested to work with a previous version. Whenever this happens, conflicts can sometimes develop.
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 updating 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 easy and simple to do.
Keeping your plugins regularly updated and removing old plugins you no longer need is part of good WordPress management and helps to avoid potential conflicts or errors.
The tutorial below explains how to update and delete plugins inside your dashboard without requiring coding knowledge or skills.
Upgrading And Deleting Plugins From Your Dashboard – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress provides several ways to inform you when plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can see ‘at a glance’ how many plugins need to be updated as soon as you log into your WP Dashboard simply by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
In the screenshot below, you can see that nine plugins are out of date and need updating …
You can also tell how many plugins need updating from your WP Notification Toolbar (as shown below, 9 plugins require updating) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also lets you know which plugins 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 your plugin with one-click …
Let’s start by learning how to update one plugin at a time.
How To Update WordPress Plugins Individually
We recommend performing a full backup of your data and files before updating your website or blog.
In your dashboard menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” page will display in your browser. The screen can be quite lengthy depending on how many plugins you have installed in your blog …
(WordPress Plugins Page)
Useful Information:
If you have too many plugins and would like to reduce the number of plugins showing on your screen, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins page and enter a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show on the page by default), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
Your Plugins area 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 “Plugin Search” field …
You will see plugin information in different color backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (active vs. inactive and out-of-date vs up-to-date) …
Plugins in need of upgrading show the following 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 provides smooth & simple plugin updates, so that updating your plugins takes place “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat this process for all plugins on your site that need updating, or refer to 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 upgrade one plugin at a time, let’s show you how to upgrade several plugins simultaneously.
Bulk-Updating WordPress Plugins
To upgrade multiple WP plugins at the same time using the automatic update feature, go to the “Plugins” page 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 dropdown menu above your plugin table, select Update …
And then click Apply …
Your selected plugins will automatically begin to update …
Once all plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to the Plugins area, or visit another section of your dashboard …
Once all plugins are 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 on your screen, toolbar and menus) …
All plugins are now up-to-date!
(When your site or blog uses the latest version of all plugins, notification icons no longer appear)
Now that you know how to update your plugins, let’s show you how to uninstall plugins from your blog or website.
Deleting Plugins
As part of smart WordPress management, it’s a good idea to uninstall plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This helps to conserve server resources and also eliminate potential problems.
In this section, we show you how to safely delete unused plugins from your WordPress blog or 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 reinstall your site.
To delete a plugin, go to your dashboard menu and select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins screen, locate 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, then click on Deactivate before continuing …
Click on Delete …
If you need to browse all the files that will be deleted before proceeding, 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 associated with the plugin that you are about to delete will be listed on your screen …
If you are positively sure that you would like to go ahead and delete the selected plugin files, then click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugin(s) will be deleted …
How To Safely Delete Multiple WP Plugins At Once
You can delete all inactive plugins at once, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be uninstalled.
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 check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …
Once you have done this, choose Deactivate from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click the Apply button …
All 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 on the main menu …
Tick the checkbox in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to delete by checking its box …
Once you have ticked all the checkboxes next to the plugins that you want to delete, specify Delete from the Bulk Actions pull-down 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 sure that you want to go ahead and remove all of the selected plugins …
Your plugins will be deleted …
Plugin Management – WordPress Tools
As well as the methods shown above, you can install 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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"This is AMAZING! I had learnt about how to use WordPress previously, but this covers absolutely everything and more!! Incredible value! Thank you!" - Monique, Warrior Forum