In a previous article, we provide a detailed explanation of what WP plugins are about and how you can use these to easily expand your web site’s functionality.
You can view this article here:
In this tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping plugins up-to-date, how to automatically update and uninstall plugins from your site, and practical plugin management tips if you run multiple WordPress sites or blogs.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why WordPress Plugins Need Updating
New WordPress versions are constantly being 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 or introduce new ones.
Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, you can expect to see at least some new new update notifications for plugins each time a new WordPress version is released.
This is because most plugins for WordPress are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes the code in the newly-released WordPress version conflict with plugins that were created and tested to work with a previous version. Whenever this happens, problems can sometimes develop.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are fairly proactive when it comes to ensuring that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if this is required). All you need to do as a website owner, is just maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is very simple to do.
Keeping your plugins up-to-date and deleting old plugins you no longer need is an essential aspect of good WordPress management and helps to avoid errors and problems.
The step-by-step tutorial below explains how to upgrade and delete plugins inside the dashboard without requiring coding skills.
Updating And Deleting Plugins In The Dashboard – Tutorial
WordPress employs a few ways to alert users when plugins need updating.
For example, you can immediately see how many plugins need updating as soon as you log into your WordPress Dashboard just by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, nine WordPress plugins are out of date and need updating …
You can also view how many plugins need to be updated from your WP Toolbar (in the example below, you can again see that nine plugins need updating) …
The Plugins page (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you which plugins need updating …
In addition to providing information about which plugins have available updates, the Plugins section 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.
Upgrade Single A Plugin
We strongly recommend making a backup of your website before upgrading your website.
In your dashboard menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” section will display in your browser. This screen can be quite lengthy depending on how many plugins you have added to your blog …
(WordPress Plugins Section)
Additional Info:
If you have too many plugins and would like to reduce the number of plugins showing on the page, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins page 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 ’numbered pages’ feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Search” field …
You will see plugin information in different color backgrounds depending on the status of the 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” …
Select the plugin that you want to update and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides streamlined plugin updates, so that the process of updating your plugins takes place with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat the above process for any other 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 the same time.
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Now that you know how to upgrade WordPress plugins individually, let’s show you how to update several WP plugins simultaneously.
Bulk-Updating Plugins
To update multiple WP plugins in a single operation from your admin area, go to the “Plugins” section 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 their individual boxes …
In the Bulk Actions drop-down menu at the top of the page, choose Update …
And then click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will update all at once …
Once your plugins have all been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to your Plugins area, or go to a different section of your dashboard …
Once your plugins are all up-to-date, the update reminders disappear (i.e. the “at-a-glance” indicators and “There is a new version of XYZ plugin available” messages no longer display on your screen, toolbar and menus) …
You have updated all plugins on your site!
(When your site or blog uses the latest version of all plugins, update messages disappear)
Now that you know how to upgrade in the dashboard, let’s take a look at how to uninstall plugins safely from your blog or website.
Deleting Plugins
At times, you may want to delete plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This helps to conserve resource usage and also will help you avoid problems.
In this section, we show you how to deactivate and delete unused plugins from your blog or site.
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 restore your site.
To delete a plugin, go to your dashboard menu and select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins section, find the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is deactivated.
Hint: Inactive plugins are listed in a different colored background than active plugins and show an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, then click on Deactivate before continuing with your plugin deletion …
Next, click on Delete …
If you want to browse all the files that will be deleted before going ahead with the next step, then click on the “Click to view entire list of files which will be deleted” link in the “Delete Plugin” page …
All files belonging to the plugin selected for removalwill display on your screen …
If you are absolutely sure that you would like to proceed and delete the selected plugin, just click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugins and related files will be deleted …
How To Safely Bulk-Delete Plugins
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins on your site, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be removed.
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) …
Next, choose Deactivate from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click Apply …
The selected plugins will be deactivated …
To delete all or some of the inactive plugins, go to the “Plugins” section and click on the Inactive link on the main menu …
Click the checkbox in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to remove by checking its box …
Once you have ticked all the check boxes next to the plugins that you want deleted, choose Delete from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click Apply …
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 delete all of the selected plugins …
Your plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
WordPress Management Tools For WP Plugins
In addition to the methods shown above, you can use WordPress plugins that let you manage your WordPress 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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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)