In a previous blog post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use these to easily expand your website’s functionality.
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 easily update and delete your WordPress plugins, and practical tools to help you better manage your plugins if you currently own or manage multiple WordPress sites.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why WordPress Plugins Need Frequent Upgrading
New versions of WordPress are regularly released (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in previous releases, as well as 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 notifications for plugins each time a new WordPress version is made available.
This is because most plugins for WordPress are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes the code in the new 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 develop.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are fairly proactive when it comes to making sure that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if required). All you have to do as a WordPress user, is maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is very simple to do.
Keeping your plugins regularly updated and deleting old plugins you no longer need is an essential aspect of good WordPress management and helps to avoid potential errors or conflicts.
The step-by-step tutorial below explains how to upgrade and delete plugins from your WP dashboard without requiring coding knowledge or skills.
Updating And Deleting Plugins In WordPress – Tutorial
WordPress utilizes a number of different ways to let you know when your 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 Administration panel simply by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
In the example below, nine plugins need to be updated …
You can also view how many plugins need to be updated from your WP Admin Toolbar (the screenshot below shows how many plugins should be updated) …
The Plugins page (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also notifies you about plugins that need to be updated …
As well as providing information about plugins that have updates available, the Plugins page provides links to the plugin developer sites and gives you the option to update the plugin individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by showing you how to upgrade individual plugins.
How To Update Individual Plugins
We recommend performing a complete backup of your website before making any upgrades to your website or blog.
In your main menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” page will display in your browser. This page can be quite long depending on the number of plugins you have installed in your blog …
(WordPress Plugins Screen)
Notes:
If you have too many plugins 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 (all plugins show up on the screen by default, i.e. “999”), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
Your Plugins page will now be made more manageable with a page scrolling feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Search” field …
You will see information about plugins in different backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (inactive vs. active and up-to-date vs. outdated) …
Plugins that require upgrading display the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Insert Plugin Name] available” …
Select the plugin that needs updating 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 takes place “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat this process for all plugins on your site that need to be updated, or see the section below if you have several plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update all plugins in bulk.
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Now that you know how to update individual WordPress plugins, let’s show you how to upgrade a bunch of plugins simultaneously.
How To Bulk-Upgrade WP Plugins
To bulk-upgrade plugins 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 …
Click on the check box in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to upgrade by checking its box …
In the Bulk Actions drop-down menu at the top of the page, choose Update …
And then click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will begin the update process …
Once all updates have 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 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 on your screen, toolbar and menus) …
All plugins have now been updated!
(When your site or blog uses the latest version of all plugins, notification icons disappear)
Now that you know how to upgrade plugins, let’s take a look at how to safely delete plugins safely from your WordPress site or blog.
How To Safely Remove WP Plugins
At times, you may decide to delete WP plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This decreases server resources and eliminate potential problems.
In this section, we show you how to delete 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 delete a plugin, go to your WP admin menu and select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins area, find the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is deactivated.
Hint: Inactive plugins have a different background color than active plugins and display an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, then click on Deactivate before proceeding with your plugin deletion …
Click Delete …
If you need 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 associated with the plugin that you are about to delete will display on your screen …
If you are absolutely certain that you want to go ahead and delete the plugin files, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugins and related files will be deleted …
How To Safely Bulk-Delete Plugins
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 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, select Deactivate from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click the Apply button …
Your 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 …
Select all of the plugins you want to delete by either placing a tick next to their check box, 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, specify Delete from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click the Apply button …
A list of all selected plugins will show up 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 absolutely sure that you would like to proceed to the next step and delete all of the selected plugins …
The selected plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
WordPress Tools For Managing WP Plugins
In addition to the methods shown above, you can install a number of 3rd-party tools that let you 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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"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