In a separate blog post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use these to add new features and functionality to your site with no coding skills required.
You can read this article here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn why plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to upgrade and delete your WordPress plugins, and discover useful tools to help you better manage your plugins.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Many Plugins Need Upgrading
New WordPress versions are regularly released (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in older software releases, and to improve existing features or introduce new ones.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, you can expect to see at least some new updates for WordPress plugins every.
This is because most WordPress plugins 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. When this happens, there is a potential for problems 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 updating is required). All you have to do on your end, is just maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is very simple and easy to do.
Keeping your plugins up-to-date and removing old plugins you no longer need is part of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid any potential conflicts and errors.
The WordPress tutorial below explains how to automatically update and delete plugins safely in your WP admin dashboard without web programming knowledge required.
How To Automatically Upgrade And Delete Plugins Inside Your Dashboard – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress provides a few ways of letting users know when plugins on their blog need to be updated.
For example, you can see how many plugins need to be updated as soon as you log into your WP Dashboard simply by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, you can see that nine WP plugins have older versions that need updating …
You can also check how many plugins need to be updated from your WP Notification Toolbar (in the example below, you can again see that 9 plugins require updating) …
The Plugins page (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also lets you know which plugins need to be updated …
As well as providing information about which plugins have updates available, the Plugins screen provides links to the plugin developer sites and gives you the option to update your plugins instantly …
Let’s start by showing you how to upgrade one WP plugin at a time.
Updating Individual A Plugin
We strongly recommend making a backup of your site files and database before upgrading your blog or website.
In your dashboard menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” screen will display in your browser. The table of plugins can go down your page for some length, depending on how many plugins you have added to your site …
(The 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 screen 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 ’numbered pages’ feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Search” box …
You will see information about plugins in different color backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (active vs. inactive and outdated vs up-to-date) …
Plugins in need of upgrading show the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin Name] available” …
Find the plugin that needs to be updated and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides simple plugin updates, so that updating your plugins happens “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat the above process for any other plugins on your site that need to be updated, or refer to the section below if you have a number of 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 WP plugins individually, let’s show you how to bulk-upgrade WP plugins.
Bulk-Updating WP Plugins
To bulk-upgrade plugins simultaneously from your admin area, go to the “Plugins” page and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Tick the check box next to 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 the table of plugins, choose Update …
And then click Apply …
Your selected plugins will automatically begin updating …
After your plugins have all been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to the Plugins screen, or select another section of your dashboard …
Once all plugins are up-to-date, any plugin alerts disappear (i.e. the “at-a-glance” indicators and “There is a new version of XYZ plugin available” notices no longer display) …
All plugins have now been upgraded to their latest versions!
(When plugins on your site are up-to-date, notification icons no longer appear)
Now that you know how to automatically upgrade WP inside your admin dashboard, it’s time to learn how to safely uninstall plugins safely from your WordPress site or blog.
Deleting WordPress Plugins
It’s a good idea to remove plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This reduces resource usage and also help to reduce problems.
In this section, you will learn how to safely remove 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 remove a plugin, go to your admin menu and select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins page, find the plugin you want to remove 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, then click on Deactivate before proceeding …
Next, click on Delete …
If you need to review a list of all the files that will be deleted before going ahead, then click on the “Click to view entire list of files which will be deleted” link in the “Delete Plugin” section …
A complete list of files belonging to the plugin selected for removalwill display on your screen …
If you are positively sure about going ahead and deleting the plugin files, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugin(s) will be deleted …
Deleting Multiple WordPress Plugins At Once
You can delete all inactive plugins at once, 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 checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …
Next, specify Deactivate from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click the Apply button …
Your 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 check box 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 selected all 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 show up 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 go ahead and remove all of the selected plugins …
Your selected plugins will be deleted …
WordPress Tools For Managing Plugins
As well as the methods shown above, you can install a range of tools that help 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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