In a separate post, we provide a detailed explanation of what WordPress plugins are all about and how you can use these to easily add new features to your website or blog without touching code.
You can view this article here:
In this tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping WordPress plugins up-to-date, how to automatically upgrade and delete plugins from your site, and some plugin management tips.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Many Of Your Plugins Need To Be Frequently Upgraded
The WordPress software is regularly updated (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in earlier software releases, as well as to improve existing features.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, there will typically be 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 third-party developers, so sometimes features in the newly-released WordPress version conflict with plugins that were created and tested to work with a previous version. When this happens, there is a potential for issues to sometimes occur.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are very proactive when it comes to making sure that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if required). All you need to do as a WordPress user, is keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is really easy to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins regularly updated and removing old plugins you no longer need is an essential aspect of good WordPress management and helps to avoid errors or conflicts.
The WordPress step-by-step tutorial below explains how to update and delete plugins without web programming skills or knowledge needed.
How To Automatically Update And Delete Plugins – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress utilizes several ways to notify you when plugins need updating.
For example, you can instantly see how many plugins need to be updated as soon as you log into your Admin area by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, you can see that nine WP plugins need updating …
You can also see how many plugins need to be updated from your WP Admin Toolbar (in the example below, you can again see that nine plugins should be updated) …
The Plugins screen (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you how many plugins need updating …
In addition to providing information about plugins that have updates available, the Plugins screen provides links to the plugin download pages and gives you the option to update the plugins instantly …
Let’s start by learning how to update plugins individually.
How To Update Plugins One At A Time
Always make a backup of your website before updating your website.
In your dashboard menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” screen will display in your browser. The table of plugins can run down your screen for a while, depending on the number of plugins you have added to your blog …
(The WordPress Plugins Section)
Useful Info:
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 (all plugins show on the page by default), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
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 “Search” feature …
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 display the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin Name] available” …
Locate the plugin that needs to be updated and click on the update now link …
WordPress has done away with the loading screen when updating plugins and streamlined the process, so that the process of updating your plugins happens “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 update all plugins in bulk.
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Now that you know how to upgrade one WordPress plugin at a time, the next step is to learn how to update many WordPress plugins simultaneously.
Bulk-Updating Plugins
To bulk-update plugins simultaneously directly inside your dashboard, go to the “Plugins” section and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Tick the checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to update by checking their individual boxes …
In the Bulk Actions pull-down menu above the list of plugins, select Update …
Click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will automatically begin to update …
Once the update process has completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to your Plugins screen, or go to a different section of your dashboard …
Once all plugins are up-to-date, the update reminders 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 upgraded!
(When your site uses the latest version of all plugins, notification icons disappear)
Now that you know how to upgrade inside your WP dashboard, let’s take a look at how to safely remove plugins safely from your WordPress site.
Deleting WP Plugins
As part of good WordPress management, it’s a good idea to uninstall plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This helps to decrease resources on your server and help to eliminate causes of some problems.
In this section, you will learn how to safely uninstall 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 reinstall your site.
To remove a plugin, go to your dashboard menu and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins area, locate the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is deactivated.
Hint: Inactive plugins have 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 continuing with your plugin deletion …
Click on Delete …
If you need to have a look at 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” page …
A complete list of files associated with the plugin that you are about to delete will be listed on your screen …
If you are positively sure about going ahead and deleting these plugin files, then click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugin(s) will be deleted …
Deleting Multiple Plugins Simultaneously
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, 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 checkbox, 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 …
All selected plugins will be deactivated …
To delete all or some of the inactive plugins, go to the “Plugins” page 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 selected all of the plugins that you want to delete, specify Delete from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click Apply …
A list of all selected plugins will display 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 certain that you want to proceed to the next step and delete all of the selected plugins …
Your plugins will be deleted …
Useful Tools For Managing Plugins
In addition to the methods shown above, you can use a number of 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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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)