In another article, we explain what plugins are and how you can use plugins to easily add new features to your website or blog without touching code.
You can read this article here:
In this tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping plugins up-to-date, how to automatically update and uninstall plugins from your site, and discover some great plugin management tools if you need to manage multiple WordPress sites.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Some Of Your WordPress Plugins Need Regular Upgrading
New WordPress versions are constantly being released (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in older software releases, as well as to improve existing features or introduce new ones.
Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, you can expect to see at least some new new update notifications for plugins each time a new version of WordPress is announced.
This is because most WordPress plugins are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes code or features in the newly-released WordPress version conflict with plugins that were developed and tested with a previous version. Whenever this happens, issues can 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 on your end, is keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is very easy and simple to do.
Keeping your plugins up-to-date and deleting old plugins you no longer use is an essential aspect of good WordPress management and helps to avoid any potential errors and problems.
The WordPress tutorial below explains how to automatically upgrade and delete plugins with no web coding knowledge necessary.
How To Upgrade And Delete Plugins Safely Inside The WordPress Dashboard – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress utilizes a few methods of letting users know when plugins on their site need updating.
For example, you can instantly see how many plugins are out-of-date as soon as you log into your Admin area just by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, 9 plugins need updating …
You can also tell how many plugins need updating from your WP Toolbar (as shown below, several plugins should be brought up to date) …
The Plugins page (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also notifies you about plugins that need to be updated …
In addition to providing information about which plugins have updates available, the Plugins page provides links to the plugin developer pages and gives you the option to update the plugin instantly …
Let’s start by learning how to update WP plugins one at a time.
Upgrading Individual A Plugin
Always make a backup of your website before upgrading your website.
From your WP admin menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” area will display in your browser. The list of plugins can run down your page for a while, depending on how many plugins you have added to your blog …
(The WordPress Plugins Section)
Useful Tips:
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 area and enter a smaller number of items per page (by default, all plugins display on the screen), then click Apply …
Your Plugins area will now be reduced in size with a pagination feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Plugin Search” feature …
You will see plugin information in different color backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (inactive vs. active and outdated vs up-to-date) …
Plugins that need updating display the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Insert Plugin Name] available” …
Find the plugin that needs updating and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides smooth and simpler plugin updates, so that the process of updating your plugins happens “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat the above 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 all plugins in bulk.
***
Now that you know how to update individual WordPress plugins, it’s time to learn how to upgrade several plugins simultaneously.
Bulk-Updating WordPress Plugins
To upgrade multiple plugins in a single operation directly inside your dashboard, go to the “Plugins” screen 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 their individual boxes …
In the Bulk Actions drop-down menu above the plugin table, select Update …
Click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will begin to update automatically …
After the update process has been completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to your Plugins screen, or choose another option from the dashboard menu …
Once your plugins are all up-to-date, the plugin notifications 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 your site or blog uses the latest version of all plugins, notification icons no longer appear)
Now that you know how to automatically update WP plugins, let’s take a look at how to safely uninstall plugins from your WordPress blog or website.
How To Safely Delete WP Plugins
Occasionally, you may decide to delete WordPress plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This conserves resources on your server and eliminate problems.
In this section, you will learn how to uninstall unused plugins from your blog or site.
We strongly recommend creating a full back up of your WordPress 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 choose Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins screen, find the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is deactivated.
Hint: Inactive plugins appear in 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 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 that you are about to delete will display on your screen …
If you are absolutely certain about going ahead and deleting these plugin, then click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugin(s) will be deleted from your WordPress installation …
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 cleared.
Note: To delete any plugins that are presently 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 checkbox, or selecting the checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …
Next, choose Deactivate from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click Apply …
All selected plugins will be deactivated …
To delete all or some of the inactive plugins on your site, go to the “Plugins” area and click on the Inactive link in the Plugins menu …
Select all of the plugins you want to delete by either placing a tick next to their checkbox, or click on the checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select and delete all inactive plugins …
Once you have ticked all the checkboxes next to the plugins that you want to delete, choose Delete from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click Apply …
A list of all selected plugins will be displayed 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 proceed to the next step and delete all of the selected plugins …
All plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
WordPress Management Tools For WP Plugins
In addition to the methods shown above, you can use WordPress plugins 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.
***
"I have used the tutorials to teach all of my clients and it has probably never been so easy for everyone to learn WordPress ... Now I don't need to buy all these very expensive video courses that often don't deliver what they promise." - Stefan Wendt, Internet Marketing Success Group