In a previous blog post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use these to easily add new features and functionality to your site with no technical knowledge required.
To read the article, go here:
In this tutorial you will learn why plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to safely update and delete plugins, and discover useful tools to help you better manage your plugins.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Some Plugins Need To Be Frequently Upgraded
The WordPress software is constantly updated (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in older versions, as well as 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 each time a new version of WordPress is released.
The reason for this, is because most plugins for WordPress are created by third-party developers, so sometimes code in the new WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were developed for a previous version. When this happens, issues can 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 needed). All you have to do on your end, is simply maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is really simple, quick and easy to do.
Keeping your plugins up-to-date and deleting old plugins you no longer use is an essential aspect of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid conflicts and errors.
The WordPress tutorial below explains how to upgrade and delete plugins in your dashboard without editing web code.
Updating And Deleting Plugins Safely In WordPress – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress uses a few ways of letting you know when plugins on your site need updating.
For example, you can immediately see how many plugins are out-of-date as soon as you log into your Admin area simply by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
In the screenshot below, you can see that nine WP plugins need to be updated …
You can also tell how many plugins need updating from your WordPress Toolbar (the example below shows that several plugins have to be updated) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also provides information about plugins that need to be updated …
As well as providing information about plugins that have available updates, the Plugins page provides links to the plugin developer sites and gives you the option to update the plugins with one-click …
Let’s start by showing you how to upgrade WP plugins individually.
Updating Individual Plugins
We recommend making a backup of your site files and database before updating your website.
In your dashboard menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” area. The table of plugins can run down your screen for a while, depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site …
(WordPress Plugins Screen)
Useful Information:
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 page and type in a smaller number of items per page (by default, all plugins display on the page), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
Your Plugins page 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” box …
WordPress displays plugin information in different color backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (inactive vs. active and up-to-date vs. out-of-date) …
Plugins that need upgrading have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin Name] available” …
Locate the plugin that needs updating and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides fast plugin updates, so that updating your plugins takes place with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat the above process for all plugins on your site that need to be updated, or see the section below if you have many plugins that are out-of-date and would like to upgrade all plugins at once.
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Now that you know how to upgrade plugins one at a time, the next step is to learn how to bulk-upgrade plugins.
Bulk-Upgrading Plugins
To bulk-update plugins using the automatic upgrade feature, go to the “Plugins” screen and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Click on 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 drop-down menu above the list of plugins, choose Update …
Click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will update all at once …
After all updates are done, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to your Plugins screen, or choose a different 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” messages no longer display on your screen, toolbar and menus) …
All plugins are now up-to-date!
(When your plugins are all up-to-date, update notices disappear)
Now that you know how to update WordPress plugins, it’s time to learn how to safely delete plugins from your WordPress blog or website.
Deleting Plugins
Occasionally, you may decide to delete WordPress plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This conserves server resources and also help to eliminate potential problems.
In this section, you will learn how to delete unused plugins from your site or blog.
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 restore your site.
To delete a plugin, go to your admin 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 are listed in a different background color than active plugins and display an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, click on Deactivate before proceeding …
Once you have deactivated the plugin, click Delete …
If you would like to review a list of all the files that will be deleted before proceeding, then click on the “Click to view entire list of files which will be deleted” link in the “Delete Plugin” screen …
All files belonging to the plugin that you are about to remove will be listed on your screen …
If you are absolutely sure that you want to go ahead and delete the selected plugin files, just click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugins and related files will be deleted …
Bulk-Deleting Plugins
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be cleared.
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 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 drop down menu …
Click the Apply button …
The 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 check box next to the Plugin column header to select and delete all inactive plugins …
Once you have ticked all the check boxes next to the plugins that you want deleted, choose Delete from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click Apply …
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 certain that you would like to go ahead and remove all of the selected plugins …
The plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Managing Plugins
As well as the methods shown above, you can install WordPress plugins 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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"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum