In a previous article, we explain what plugins are and how you can use these to easily add new features to your site without touching code.
To read the article, go here:
In this tutorial you will learn why WordPress plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to update and delete plugins from your site, and practical tools to help you better manage your plugins if you need to run or manage multiple WordPress sites or blogs.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Plugins Need Upgrading
New versions of WordPress are regularly released (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in earlier releases, and to improve existing features or introduce new functionality to WordPress users.
Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, you can expect to see at least some new new update notices for WordPress plugins every.
This is because most plugins for WordPress are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes code in the new WordPress version conflict with plugins that were created and tested to work with a previous version. When 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 required). All you need to do as a website owner, is simply maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is very easy to do.
Keeping your plugins up-to-date and removing old plugins you no longer need is an essential aspect of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid any potential problems or errors.
The WordPress step-by-step tutorial below explains how to upgrade and delete plugins safely without requiring coding knowledge or skills.
Upgrading And Deleting WordPress Plugins Safely – Tutorial
WordPress utilizes several methods to notify users when plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can tell immediately how many plugins need updating as soon as you log into your Administration area just by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, you can see that nine WordPress plugins have older versions that need updating …
You can also see how many plugins need to be updated from your WP Notification Toolbar (the example below shows that several plugins need to be updated) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you how many plugins need updating …
In addition to providing information about plugins that have available updates, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin download sites and gives you the option to update your plugin instantly …
Let’s start by showing you how to update individual WP plugins.
Upgrade Plugins Individually
Always make a full backup of your site files and database before making any upgrades to your website or blog.
In your admin menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” area. The page can be quite lengthy depending on the number of plugins you have installed on your blog …
(WordPress Plugins Section)
Additional Information:
If you have too many plugins installed and would like to make this section more manageable, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins page 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 page 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” function …
You will see plugin information in different backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (active vs. inactive and outdated vs up-to-date) …
Plugins that require updating have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin Name] available” …
Locate the plugin that you want to update and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides streamlined plugin updates, so that the process of 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 upgrade them all in bulk.
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Now that you know how to update WordPress plugins one at a time, let’s show you how to bulk-update WordPress plugins.
Bulk-Upgrading Plugins
To upgrade multiple plugins at the same time using the automatic updating feature, go to the “Plugins” section and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Click the check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to update by checking their individual boxes …
In the Bulk Actions drop-down menu above the table of plugins, choose Update …
And then click Apply …
Your selected plugins will begin updating …
Once all updates have been completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to the Plugins area, or select another option from the main menu …
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!
(When plugins on your site are up-to-date, update notices do not display)
Now that you know how to update in your admin dashboard, it’s time to learn how to delete plugins from your WordPress site or blog.
How To Safely Remove WordPress Plugins
At times, you may choose to remove plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This helps to reduce resource usage and eliminates potential problems.
In this section, we show you how to safely remove unused plugins from your WordPress blog or site.
We strongly recommend creating 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 remove a plugin, go to your admin menu and select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins screen, locate the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is deactivated.
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 proceeding with your plugin deletion …
Next, click Delete …
If you need to browse 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 …
A complete list of files associated with the plugin selected for deletionwill be listed on your screen …
If you are absolutely sure that you would like to proceed and delete the plugin files, then click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugin(s) will be deleted from your WordPress installation …
How To Bulk-Delete Plugins
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be deleted.
Note: To delete any plugins that are currently active, your will 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 …
Your selected plugins will be deactivated …
To delete all or some of the inactive plugins, go to the “Plugins” page and click on the Inactive link on the main menu …
Select all of the plugins you want to delete by either placing a tick next to their checkbox, or click on the check box next to the Plugin column header to select and delete all inactive plugins …
Once you have selected all of the plugins that you want to delete, choose Delete from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click the Apply button …
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 would like to go ahead and delete all of the plugins listed …
Your plugins will be deleted …
WordPress Plugin Management – WordPress Tools
In addition to the methods shown above, you can install a range of tools 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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