In a separate post, we provide a detailed explanation of what plugins are all about and how you can use these to easily add new features to your site with no technical skills required.
To view this article, go here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn why WordPress plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to update and uninstall your WordPress plugins, and discover practical tools to help you better manage your plugins.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Many Plugins Need To Be Upgraded
New versions of WordPress are regularly released (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in earlier software releases, and to improve existing features.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, there will typically be new new update notices for WordPress plugins when new versions of WordPress are announced.
This is because most plugins for WordPress are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes features in the newly-released WordPress version conflict with plugins that were built for a previous version. Whenever this happens, problems can sometimes occur.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are quite proactive when it comes to making sure that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if this is required). All you have to do as a website owner, is simply maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is really simple to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins regularly updated and removing old plugins you no longer use is part of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid any potential conflicts and errors.
The tutorial below explains how to upgrade and delete plugins safely inside the WP admin dashboard with no web programming knowledge needed.
Updating And Deleting Plugins Safely In Your WordPress Admin Dashboard – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress provides a few ways to alert you when plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can tell immediately how many plugins need to be updated inside your Administration area by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, nine plugins have older versions that need updating …
You can also tell how many plugins need updating from your WordPress Toolbar (as shown below, a number of plugins should be updated) …
The Plugins screen (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you what plugins need to be updated …
As well as providing information about plugins that have updates available, the Plugins page provides links to the plugin download sites and gives you the option to update the plugins individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by learning how to update one WordPress plugin at a time.
Updating Plugins One At A Time
We recommend performing a full backup of your website before updating your website or blog.
In your WP admin menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” area will display in your browser. This list of plugins can be quite long depending on how many plugins you have added to your site …
(The WordPress Plugins Screen)
Useful Information:
If you have too many plugins installed and would like to reduce the number of plugins showing on the screen, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins screen and enter a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show on the page by default, i.e. “999”), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
Your Plugins page 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 “Plugin Search” field …
WordPress displays plugin information in different backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (inactive vs. active and out-of-date vs up-to-date) …
Plugins in need of updating have a distinctive 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 provides streamlined plugin updates, so that the process of updating your plugins happens “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat this process for all plugins on your site that need updating, 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 at once.
***
Now that you know how to upgrade one plugin at a time, let’s show you how to update a bunch of WordPress plugins simultaneously.
How To Bulk-Update WP Plugins
To bulk-update WP plugins simultaneously from your admin area, go to the “Plugins” screen 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 upgrade by checking its box …
In the Bulk Actions drop down menu above the table of plugins, select Update …
And then click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will begin updating …
After all plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to the Plugins section, or visit a different section of your dashboard …
Once all plugins are up-to-date, the update reminders will disappear (i.e. the “at-a-glance” indicators and “There is a new version of XYZ plugin available” messages no longer display) …
You have updated all plugins on your site!
(When your plugins are all up-to-date, the notification icons disappear)
Now that you know how to update your plugins, it’s time to learn how to remove plugins safely from your WordPress site or blog.
Deleting Plugins
At times, you may decide to remove WordPress plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This helps to conserve resources on your server and also eliminate problems.
In this section, we show you how to uninstall unused plugins from your blog or site.
We strongly recommend creating a full back up of your WordPress 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 admin menu and choose Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins area, find the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is deactivated.
Hint: Inactive plugins use 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 …
Next, click Delete …
If you need to browse all the files that will be deleted before taking the next step, 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 deletionwill be listed on your screen …
If you are certain about going ahead and deleting these plugin, 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 uninstalled.
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, select Deactivate from the Bulk Actions drop-down menu …
Click Apply …
Your selected plugins will be deactivated …
To delete all or some of the inactive plugins on your site, go to the “Plugins” page and click on the Inactive link on the main 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 the plugins that you want deleted, 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 sure that you would like to proceed to the next step and remove all of the selected plugins …
All plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Useful Management Tools For Plugins
In addition to the methods shown above, you can use Free and Premium WordPress plugins 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.
***
"I am beyond impressed with what you have put together. I can tell that you put a ton of hard work into building what you have. You have the absolute best content on WordPress I have ever seen!" - Robert T. Jillie