In another post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use these to easily add new features and functionality to your website without touching code.
To read the article, go here:
In this tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date, how to safely update and uninstall your WordPress plugins, and practical tips to help you better manage your plugins if you plan to run or manage multiple WordPress sites or blogs.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why WordPress Plugins Need Upgrading
WordPress frequently updates its software (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in earlier versions, as well as to improve existing features.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, you can expect to see at least some new new update notifications for plugins each time a new version of WordPress is released.
This is because most WordPress plugins are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes the code in the new WordPress version conflict with plugins that were created and tested to work with a previous version. Whenever this happens, conflicts can sometimes occur.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are quite proactive when it comes to ensuring that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if this is needed). All you need to do as a website owner, is just maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is really simple, quick and easy to do.
Keeping your 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 automatically upgrade and delete plugins without requiring web programming knowledge or skills.
Updating And Deleting Plugins Safely Inside Your Dashboard – Tutorial
WordPress employs several methods to notify users when plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can tell immediately how many plugins need updating from your Site’s Dashboard just by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, you can see that nine plugins need to be updated …
You can also see how many plugins need updating from your WordPress Administration Toolbar (the example below shows that nine plugins should be brought up to date) …
The Plugins screen (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also notifies you about plugins that need updating …
As well as providing information about which plugins have updates available, the Plugins page provides links to the plugin download sites and gives you the option to update your plugin individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by showing you how to update individual plugins.
How To Upgrade Plugins Individually
Always make a backup of your site files and database before making any updates to your website.
In your dashboard menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” section. This list of plugins can be quite lengthy depending on how many plugins you have added to your site …
(Plugins Page)
Additional Info:
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 (by default, all plugins display on the screen), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
Your Plugins area will now be made more manageable with a ’numbered pages’ feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Search Plugins” function …
WordPress displays plugin information in different color backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (active vs. inactive and up-to-date vs. outdated) …
Plugins that need upgrading have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin] available” …
Find the plugin that needs to be updated and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides simpler plugin updating, so that updating your plugins takes place “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat the above process for all plugins on your site that need updating, or refer to the section below if you have many plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update them all at once.
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Now that you know how to update individual WordPress plugins, let’s show you how to bulk-upgrade WP plugins.
How To Bulk-Upgrade Plugins
To bulk-update plugins simultaneously from your admin area, go to the “Plugins” area and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Click on the checkbox in 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 list of plugins, select Update …
And then click Apply …
Your selected plugins will update all at once …
Once all upgrades are completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to your Plugins area, or choose another section of your dashboard …
Once your plugins are all up-to-date, any plugin alerts will 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 no longer show)
Now that you know how to automatically update your in the admin dashboard, let’s show you how to remove plugins from your site or blog.
Deleting WordPress Plugins
At times, you may choose to delete plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This can decrease resource usage and help to eliminate potential problems.
In this section, we show you how to deactivate and delete unused plugins from your WordPress blog or site.
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 remove a plugin, go to your WP admin menu and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins page, locate 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 …
Next, click Delete …
If you need to browse all the files that will be deleted before proceeding any further, then click on the “Click to view entire list of files which will be deleted” link in the “Delete Plugin” page …
The entire list of files belonging to the plugin selected for deletionwill display on your screen …
If you are certain that you would like to proceed and delete the selected plugin files, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugin(s) will be deleted from your server …
Deleting Several WordPress Plugins At Once
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 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 checkbox, or selecting the checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …
Next, choose Deactivate from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click the Apply button …
Your 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 …
Tick the checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to delete by checking its box …
Once you have ticked all the check boxes next to the plugins that you want to delete, choose 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 sure that you want to proceed to the next step and remove all of the plugins listed …
All plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Practical Management Tools For WordPress Plugins
In addition to the methods shown above, you can install 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.
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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now