In another article, we provide a detailed explanation of what plugins are about and how you can use these to extend your blog’s capabilities.
You can read the article here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn why plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to automatically upgrade and delete your WordPress plugins, and some tips to help you better manage your plugins.
Why Some Of Your Plugins Need Upgrading
WordPress constantly updates its software (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in earlier software versions, and to improve existing features.
Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, you can expect to see at least some new updates for plugins each time a new WordPress version is made available.
The reason for this, is because most plugins for WordPress are created by external developers, so sometimes the code in the newly-released WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were developed for a previous version. Whenever this happens, issues can sometimes occur.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are very 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 on your end, is just maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is very simple and easy to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date and removing old plugins you no longer need is part of good WordPress management and helps to avoid errors and conflicts.
The WordPress tutorial below explains how to automatically update and delete plugins in WordPress with no coding skills or knowledge necessary.
Updating And Deleting WordPress Plugins Safely – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress utilizes a few ways to let users know when plugins on their blog need to be updated.
For example, you can tell immediately how many plugins need updating from your Administration panel simply by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, you can see that nine plugins need to be updated …
You can also tell how many plugins need to be updated from your WP Toolbar (as shown below, several plugins need updating) …
The Plugins page (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you how many plugins need to be updated …
As well as providing information about which plugins have updates available, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin download sites and gives you the option to update your plugins with one-click …
Let’s start by showing you how to update one plugin at a time.
Upgrade WordPress Plugins Individually
Always make a complete backup of your data and files before updating your website.
In your admin menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” section. The table of plugins can go down your screen for some length, depending on the number of plugins you have added to your site …
(The WordPress Plugins Section)
Useful Info:
If you have too many plugins and would like to reduce the number of plugins displaying on the screen, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins page and enter a smaller number of items per page (by default, all plugins display on the page), then click Apply …
Your Plugins section will now be made more manageable with a pagination feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Plugin Search” function …
You will see information about plugins in different backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (active vs. inactive and up-to-date vs. outdated) …
Plugins that need upgrading show the following 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 updating your plugins happens with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat the above process for any other plugins on your site that need updating, 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 one simple operation.
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Now that you know how to upgrade one plugin at a time, it’s time to learn how to bulk-upgrade plugins.
Bulk-Upgrading Plugins
To bulk-upgrade WP plugins 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 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 pull-down menu above the plugin list, select Update …
And then click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will begin updating …
Once all plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to the Plugins section, or choose another option from the WordPress dashboard menu …
Once all plugins are 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 are now up-to-date!
(When your plugins are up-to-date, the notification icons no longer show)
Now that you know how to automatically upgrade inside the WP dashboard, let’s show you how to safely delete plugins from your blog or website.
How To Delete WordPress Plugins
At times, you may want to delete WordPress plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This can help reduce resource usage and help you avoid problems.
In this section, we show you how to safely remove unused plugins from your 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 reinstall your site.
To delete a plugin, go to your dashboard menu and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins screen, locate the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is inactive.
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, click on Deactivate before continuing with your plugin deletion …
Click Delete …
If you need to review a list of 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” screen …
A complete list of files associated with the plugin that you are about to delete will be listed on your screen …
If you are absolutely certain about going ahead and deleting the selected plugin, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugins and related files will be removed from your server …
How To Safely Bulk-Delete WordPress Plugins
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be cleared.
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 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 drop-down menu …
Click Apply …
Your selected plugins will be deactivated …
To delete all or some of the inactive plugins on your site, go to the “Plugins” section and click on the Inactive link in the Plugins menu …
Click on 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 selected all the plugins that you want deleted, specify 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 sure that you want to proceed to the next step and delete all of the selected plugins …
All plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Plugin Management – Tools
In addition to the methods shown above, you can install WordPress plugins to 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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"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