In a previous article, we explain what plugins are and how you can use plugins to add new features or functionality to your website or blog with no software programming knowledge required.
To read the article, go here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping your plugins up-to-date, how to automatically upgrade and remove plugins, and discover some great plugin management tools if you plan to manage multiple WordPress sites.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Your Plugins Need Upgrading
New WordPress versions 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 have installed on your site, there will typically be new updates for WordPress plugins when new versions of WordPress are announced.
This is because most WordPress plugins are created by third-party developers, so sometimes the code in the newly-released WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were developed and tested with a previous version. When this happens, there is a potential for problems to sometimes occur.
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 required). All you have to do on your end, is just maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is very simple and easy to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date and deleting old plugins you no longer need is part of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid potential problems or errors.
The step-by-step tutorial below explains how to update and delete WordPress plugins safely without requiring web coding or programming knowledge.
How To Update And Delete Plugins – Tutorial
WordPress employs a number of different methods to let users know when plugins need updating.
For example, you can immediately see how many plugins need updating inside your Administration site just by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
In the example below, you can see that 9 WordPress plugins are out of date and need to be updated …
You can also tell how many plugins need to be updated from your WP Toolbar (as shown below, several plugins should be updated) …
The Plugins page (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you how many plugins need updating …
In addition to providing information about plugins that have available updates, the Plugins screen provides links to the plugin developer sites and gives you the option to update your plugin with one-click …
Let’s start by showing you how to upgrade plugins individually.
Upgrading WordPress Plugins One At A Time
Always make a backup of your data and files before updating your website or blog.
In your dashboard menu, go to 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 how many plugins you have installed in your site …
(Plugins Page)
Additional Info:
If you have too many plugins and would like to reduce the number of plugins displaying on the page, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins screen and type in a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show up on the screen by default), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
Your Plugins section will now be reduced in size with a page scrolling feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Search” feature …
WordPress displays plugin information in different color backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (inactive vs. active 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” …
Find the plugin that needs to be updated 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 “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat the above process for all plugins on your site that need updating, or see the section below if you have many plugins that are out-of-date and would like to upgrade all plugins in bulk.
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Now that you know how to update individual WordPress plugins, the next step is to learn how to bulk-upgrade WordPress plugins.
How To Bulk-Upgrade WP Plugins
To update multiple plugins simultaneously directly inside your dashboard, go to the “Plugins” page and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Click on 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 dropdown menu above your plugin list, select Update …
And then click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will automatically begin to update …
Once all updates are completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to the Plugins section, or select 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” notices no longer display on your screen, toolbar and menus) …
You have updated all plugins on your site to their latest version!
(When plugins on your site are all up-to-date, update messages do not display)
Now that you know how to upgrade inside the admin dashboard, it’s time to learn how to safely delete plugins safely from your WordPress site.
How To Delete WP Plugins
As part of good WordPress management practice, it’s a good idea to uninstall plugins that you no longer use. This reduces resources on your server and also eliminate causes of problems.
In this section, you will learn how to safely deactivate and 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 restore your site.
To delete a plugin, go to your dashboard menu and select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins screen, find the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is deactivated.
Hint: Inactive plugins appear in a different colored background than active plugins and display an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, click on Deactivate before continuing with your plugin deletion …
Click on Delete …
If you would like to have a look at all the files that will be deleted before going ahead with the next step, then click on the “Click to view entire list of files which will be deleted” link in the “Delete Plugin” page …
All files belonging to the plugin selected for deletionwill display on your screen …
If you are sure that you would like to proceed and delete the selected plugin files, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugin(s) will be deleted from your server …
Deleting Several Plugins At Once
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins on your site, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be deleted.
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) …
Once you have done this, choose Deactivate from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click Apply …
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 the check box 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 of the plugins that you want to delete, select Delete from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click Apply …
A list of all selected plugins will display 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 delete all of the selected plugins …
Your plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
WordPress Plugin Management – WordPress Tools
As well as the methods shown above, you can install a range of 3rd-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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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)