In another article, we explain what plugins are and how you can use plugins to easily increase your website’s functionality.
You can read this article here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn why plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to safely upgrade and remove plugins from your site, and discover some tools to help you better manage your plugins.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Some Plugins Need Updating
New WordPress versions are regularly released (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in older releases, and to improve existing features or introduce new functionality to users.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, you can expect to see at least some new new update notices for WordPress plugins every.
The reason for this, is because most WordPress plugins are created by third-party developers, so sometimes code or features in the new WordPress version conflict with plugins that were built for a previous version. When this happens, problems can sometimes develop.
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 this is required). All you need to do on your end, is simply keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is really simple and easy to do.
Keeping your plugins regularly updated and deleting old plugins you no longer need is part of good WordPress management and helps to avoid errors and problems.
The tutorial below explains how to upgrade and delete plugins safely without coding knowledge or skills required.
How To Update And Delete Plugins In Your WordPress Admin Dashboard – Tutorial
WordPress uses several ways to inform you when plugins need updating.
For example, you can instantly see how many plugins need updating as soon as you log into your WordPress Dashboard simply by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, you can see that 9 plugins are out of date and need updating …
You can also view how many plugins need updating from your WordPress Administration Toolbar (the screenshot below shows that nine plugins should be updated) …
The Plugins screen (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you which plugins need to be updated …
As well as providing information about plugins that have updates available, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin download pages and gives you the option to update the plugins with one-click …
Let’s start by showing you how to update WP plugins one at a time.
Upgrading Plugins Individually
Always make a full backup of your site files and database before upgrading your website or blog.
In your admin menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” page. This page can be quite long depending on how many plugins you have added to your blog …
(The WordPress Plugins Page)
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 type in a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show up on the page by default, i.e. “999”), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
Your Plugins page 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” field …
You will see information about plugins in different backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (active vs. inactive and up-to-date vs. out-of-date) …
Plugins in need of upgrading display the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Insert Plugin Name] available” …
Select 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 screen …
Repeat this process for all plugins on your site that need to be updated, or see the section below if you have a number of plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update them all in bulk.
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Now that you know how to update WP plugins individually, it’s time to learn how to update several plugins simultaneously.
How To Upgrade Many WP Plugins
To update multiple WordPress plugins simultaneously from your admin area, go to the “Plugins” page and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Click on 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 dropdown menu above the table of plugins, choose Update …
And then click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will begin the update process …
Once all plugin updates are completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to the Plugins area, or select another option from the dashboard menu …
Once all plugins are 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 upgraded!
(When your site or blog uses the latest version of all plugins, the notification icons disappear)
Now that you know how to automatically update WP plugins, let’s take a look at how to delete plugins from your blog or website.
Deleting WordPress Plugins
It’s a good idea to uninstall plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This decreases resource usage and also eliminates causes of some problems.
In this section, we show you how to delete unused plugins from your WordPress 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 restore your site.
To remove a plugin, go to your dashboard menu and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins section, locate the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is inactive.
Hint: Inactive plugins are listed in a different colored background than active plugins and display an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, click on Deactivate before proceeding with your plugin deletion …
Next, click on Delete …
If you want 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 that you are about to remove will be listed on your screen …
If you are absolutely certain that you want to go ahead and delete the selected plugin, then click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugins and related files will be deleted …
How To Safely Delete Multiple Plugins At Once
You can delete all inactive plugins at once, 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 check box, or selecting the checkbox 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 dropdown menu …
Click the Apply button …
Your 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 on the main menu …
Tick the checkbox in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to delete by checking their individual boxes …
Once you have selected all of the plugins that you want to delete, specify Delete from the Bulk Actions pull-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 proceed to the next step and delete all of the plugins listed …
All plugins will be deleted …
Tools For Managing Plugins
As well as the methods shown above, you can install a number of tools that help you 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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"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