In another blog post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use plugins to easily add new features to your blog with no coding skills required.
You can read this article here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping your plugins up-to-date, how to upgrade and uninstall plugins, and discover some great plugin management tools if you plan to manage multiple WordPress sites.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Some Of Your WordPress Plugins Need Frequent Updating
WordPress constantly updates its software (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in older versions, and to improve existing features.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, you can expect to see at least some new updates for WordPress plugins each time a new version of WordPress is released.
This is because most WordPress plugins are created by external developers, so sometimes the code in the newly-released WordPress version conflict with plugins that were developed and tested with 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 required). All you have to do on your end, is simply maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is really easy and simple 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 potential conflicts or errors.
The tutorial below explains how to upgrade and delete WordPress plugins safely inside your WP admin dashboard without requiring web coding skills or knowledge.
How To Upgrade And Delete Plugins From Your Dashboard – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress has several ways of letting users know when plugins need updating.
For example, you can immediately see how many plugins are out-of-date as soon as you log into your Administration panel by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
In the example below, you can see that 9 plugins are out of date and need updating …
You can also tell how many plugins need to be updated from your WP Toolbar (the screenshot below shows that several plugins should be brought up to date) …
The Plugins screen (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you what plugins need updating …
As well as providing information about plugins that have updates available, the Plugins page provides links to the plugin download pages and gives you the option to update your plugin individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by learning how to update individual WP plugins.
Upgrade WordPress Plugins One At A Time
We strongly recommend making a backup of your data and files before making any changes to your website.
In your admin menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” screen will display in your browser. This page can be quite lengthy depending on the number of plugins you have added to your site …
(The WordPress Plugins Page)
Notes:
If you have too many plugins installed and would like to reduce the number of plugins displayed on your screen, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins page and type in a smaller number of items per page (by default, all plugins display on the screen), then click Apply …
Your Plugins section 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” box …
WordPress displays information about plugins in different backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (active vs. inactive and up-to-date vs. outdated) …
Plugins that need updating have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin] available” …
Locate the plugin that needs updating and click on the update now link …
WordPress has done away with the loading screen when updating plugins and streamlined the plugin updating process, so that the process of updating your plugins happens with just “one click” 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 in one simple operation.
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Now that you know how to upgrade individual WP plugins, it’s time to learn how to bulk-upgrade plugins.
How To Update Many WP Plugins Simultaneously
To update multiple WP plugins in one go 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 checkbox 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 plugin table, choose Update …
Click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will automatically begin to update …
After all plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to the Plugins section, or select another option from the WordPress dashboard menu …
Once your plugins are all up-to-date, any plugin alerts 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 plugins are all up-to-date, the notification icons do not display)
Now that you know how to update WP plugins, it’s time to learn how to safely uninstall plugins safely from your site.
How To Delete WP Plugins
At times, you may choose to delete plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This can help to decrease server resources and helps to eliminate causes of problems.
In this section, we show you how to uninstall unused plugins from your site or blog.
Always create 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 delete a plugin, go to your WP admin menu and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins screen, find the plugin you want to delete 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, click on Deactivate before proceeding …
Click on Delete …
If you would like 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 remove will display on your screen …
If you are absolutely sure about going ahead and deleting these plugin files, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugins and related files will be deleted …
How To Bulk-Delete Plugins
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 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, specify Deactivate from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click Apply …
All 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 check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to delete by checking its box …
Once you have ticked all the check boxes next to the plugins that you want deleted, specify Delete from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click the Apply button …
A list of all selected plugins will show up 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 plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Managing WordPress Plugins – Tools
In addition to the methods shown above, you can use WordPress plugins that let 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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