In a previous post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use plugins to easily enhance your blog’s capabilities.

To view the article, go here:

• Adding New Features And Functionality To Your Website With Plugins

In this tutorial you will learn why plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to safely update and remove plugins, and discover practical plugin management tips if you run multiple WordPress sites or blogs.

How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins

Why Many WordPress Plugins Need To Be Frequently Updated

New versions of WordPress are regularly released (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in previous releases, as well as to improve existing features.

Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, you can expect to see at least some new new update notices for plugins each time a new version of WordPress is made available.

The reason for this, is because most WordPress plugins are created by external 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 conflicts to sometimes develop.

Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are fairly proactive when it comes to ensuring that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if this is needed). All you have to do on your end, is simply keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is really simple, quick and easy to do.

Keeping your plugins regularly updated and deleting old plugins you no longer use is an essential aspect of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid any errors and conflicts.

The WordPress step-by-step tutorial below explains how to update and delete plugins safely in WordPress without requiring coding knowledge.

How To Update And Delete Plugins In Your Dashboard – Step-By-Step Tutorial

WordPress uses several methods to inform you when plugins need to be updated.

For example, you can see how many plugins need to be updated inside your WP Dashboard simply by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.

For example, in the screenshot below, you can see that 9 WordPress plugins have older versions that need to be updated …

You can also view how many plugins need to be updated from your WP Toolbar (the screenshot 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 which plugins have available updates, the Plugins page provides links to the plugin developer sites and gives you the option to update the plugin with one-click …

Let’s start by showing you how to update one WordPress plugin at a time.

How To Update Single A Plugin

We recommend performing a full backup of your site files and database before making any updates to your website.

From your admin menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …

You will be taken to the “Plugins” screen. The list of plugins can be quite long depending on the number of plugins you have added to your blog …

(WordPress Plugins Section)

Useful Information:

If you have too many plugins installed and would like to reduce the number of plugins displayed on the page, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins screen and type in a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show on the page by default), then click the ‘Apply’ button …

Your Plugins section 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 require upgrading have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Insert Plugin Name] available” …

Find the plugin that you want to update and click on the update now link …

WordPress provides smooth & fast plugin updates, 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 updating, or refer to the section below if you have several plugins that are out-of-date and would like to upgrade them all at the same time.

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Now that you know how to update individual WP plugins, the next step is to learn how to upgrade a bunch of WordPress plugins simultaneously.

How To Bulk-Update Plugins

To update multiple plugins in one go using the automatic update feature, go to the “Plugins” screen and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …

Click the checkbox next to 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 pull-down menu above the list of plugins, choose Update …

Click Apply …

The plugins you have selected will all be updated at once …

Once the update process has completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to your Plugins section, or select another section of your dashboard …

Once all plugins are 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” 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 alerts do not display)

Now that you know how to automatically upgrade in your admin dashboard, let’s show you how to safely remove plugins from your WordPress site or blog.

Deleting Plugins

Occasionally, you may choose to delete WordPress plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This decreases server resources and also help you avoid causes of problems.

In this section, we show you how to uninstall unused plugins from your WordPress blog or site.

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 click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …

In the Plugins screen, find the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is inactive.

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 …

Click Delete …

If you want to browse 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 associated with the plugin that you are about to remove will be listed on your screen …

If you are certain that you would like to proceed and delete these plugin files, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …

Your plugins and related files will be deleted from your server …

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 must first 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 dropdown menu …

Click the Apply button …

The selected plugins will be deactivated …

Once you have deactivated these plugins, click on the Inactive link on the menu at the top of the page …

Click the checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to remove by checking its box …

Once you have selected all of the plugins that you want deleted, select 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 absolutely sure that you want to go ahead and remove all of the selected plugins …

All selected plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …

WordPress Management Tools For WordPress Plugins

As well as the methods shown above, you can use a number of 3rd-party tools 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.

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