In another article, we explain what plugins are and how you can use plugins to easily add new features and functionality to your site without touching code.
You can read this article here:
In this tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping plugins up-to-date, how to safely update and remove plugins from your site, and discover some tips to help you better manage your plugins if you need to run multiple WordPress sites.
Why WordPress Plugins Need To Be Regularly Upgraded
WordPress regularly updates its software (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in older software 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 new update notices for WordPress plugins each time a new version of WordPress is released.
The reason for this, is because most plugins for WordPress are created by third-party developers, so sometimes code in the newly-released WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were created and tested to work with a previous version. Whenever this happens, there is a potential for problems to 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 updating is required). All you need to do as a WordPress user, is keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is really simple to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date and removing old plugins you no longer use is an essential aspect of good WordPress management and helps to avoid any errors and problems.
The WordPress tutorial below explains how to upgrade and delete plugins without touching web code.
Updating And Deleting Plugins – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress uses a few ways of letting users know when plugins on their blog need updating.
For example, you can see how many plugins are out-of-date inside your Administration site simply by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, you can see that 9 WP plugins have older versions that need to be updated …
You can also see how many plugins need to be updated from your WP Toolbar (the screenshot below shows how many plugins have to be updated) …
The Plugins screen (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also provides information about plugins that need updating …
As well as providing information about plugins that have available updates, the Plugins page provides links to the plugin developer sites and gives you the option to update the plugins individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by showing you how to upgrade WP plugins individually.
How To Update Individual Plugins
We recommend making a full backup of your site files and database before making any updates to your blog or website.
In your main menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” area. The list of plugins can go down your screen for some length, depending on the number of plugins you have added to your blog …
(Plugins Screen)
Notes:
If you have too many plugins installed and would like to reduce the number of plugins displaying on the page, 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 page will now be made more manageable with a page scrolling feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Plugin Search” field …
You will see information about plugins in different color backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (active vs. inactive and up-to-date vs. out-of-date) …
Plugins that need updating display the following 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 smooth and simple plugin updates, so that the process of updating your plugins takes place “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat this process for any other plugins on your site that need to be updated, or refer to the section below if you have many plugins that are out-of-date and would like to upgrade all plugins in one simple operation.
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Now that you know how to upgrade one WP plugin at a time, the next step is to learn how to upgrade several plugins simultaneously.
Bulk-Updating WordPress Plugins
To upgrade multiple WP plugins at the same time 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 …
Tick the checkbox in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to update by checking its box …
In the Bulk Actions pull-down menu above the plugin list, choose Update …
Click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will begin the update process …
After all plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to your Plugins area, or select another section of your dashboard …
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” messages no longer display on your screen, toolbar and menus) …
All plugins are now up-to-date!
(When your site uses the latest version of all plugins, update icons no longer display)
Now that you know how to automatically update WordPress plugins, let’s take a look at how to safely remove plugins safely from your blog or website.
Deleting Plugins
It’s a good idea to delete inactive plugins. This decreases server resources and eliminate potential problems.
In this section, we show you how to uninstall 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 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 show an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, click on Deactivate before continuing with your plugin deletion …
Click on Delete …
If you need 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 …
The entire list of files associated with the plugin that you are about to remove will display on your screen …
If you are sure that you would like to go ahead and delete the selected plugin files, then click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugins and related files will be deleted …
Bulk-Deleting WordPress Plugins
You can delete all inactive plugins at once, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be deleted.
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 checkbox, or selecting the checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …
Next, select Deactivate from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click Apply …
The 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 …
Tick the check box in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to remove by checking its box …
Once you have ticked all the check boxes next to the plugins that you want deleted, select 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 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 sure that you would like to go ahead and remove 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
As well as the methods shown above, you can use 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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"I have used the tutorials to teach all of my clients and it has probably never been so easy for everyone to learn WordPress ... Now I don't need to buy all these very expensive video courses that often don't deliver what they promise." - Stefan Wendt, Internet Marketing Success Group