In a separate blog post, we provide a detailed explanation of what plugins are about and how you can use plugins to expand your website’s capabilities.
You can view the article here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn why plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to safely update and uninstall plugins from your site, and discover useful tips to help you better manage your plugins if you manage multiple WordPress sites or blogs.
Why Some Of Your Plugins Need Upgrading
New WordPress versions are constantly being released (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in previous releases, as well as to improve existing features.
Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, there will typically be new new update notifications for plugins every.
The reason for this, is because most plugins for WordPress are created by external developers, so sometimes code or features in the newly-released WordPress version conflict with plugins that were built for a previous version. When this happens, conflicts can sometimes occur.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are fairly 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 keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is really easy to do.
Keeping your plugins regularly updated and deleting old plugins you no longer use is part of good WordPress management and helps to avoid any problems or errors.
The tutorial below explains how to automatically update and delete plugins without web coding knowledge necessary.
How To Upgrade And Delete Plugins In Your WP Admin Dashboard – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress provides several methods of letting users know when plugins on their blog need updating.
For example, you can see ‘at a glance’ how many plugins are out-of-date from your Administration area simply by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
In the example below, 9 WordPress plugins are out of date and need to be updated …
You can also check how many plugins need to be updated from your WP Admin Toolbar (the screenshot below shows how many plugins have to be updated) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you which plugins need to be updated …
As well as providing information about which plugins have available updates, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin download pages and gives you the option to update your plugins individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by learning how to upgrade one WordPress plugin at a time.
How To Upgrade WordPress Plugins Individually
We recommend performing a full backup of your site files and database before upgrading your website or blog.
In your dashboard menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” page will display in your browser. The table of plugins can go down your screen for a while, depending on the number of plugins you have added to your blog …
(The WordPress Plugins Screen)
Additional Information:
If you have too many plugins installed and would like to reduce the number of plugins displayed on the screen, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins area and enter a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show on the screen by default), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
Your Plugins section 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 Plugins” feature …
You will see information about plugins in different backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (active vs. inactive and out-of-date vs up-to-date) …
Plugins that need updating have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin Name] available” …
Select the plugin that needs to be updated and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides smooth & simple plugin updates, so that the process of updating your plugins takes place “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat this process for all plugins on your site that need updating, or refer to the section below if you have a number of plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update them all at once.
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Now that you know how to update WP plugins one at a time, let’s show you how to bulk-upgrade plugins.
Bulk-Upgrading WordPress Plugins
To bulk-upgrade plugins directly inside your dashboard, go to the “Plugins” page and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Click the checkbox next to 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 list of plugins, choose Update …
And then click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will begin the update process …
After your plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to your Plugins section, or select another section of your dashboard …
Once all plugins are up-to-date, the update reminders will 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 have now been upgraded!
(When your plugins are all up-to-date, notification icons do not display)
Now that you know how to automatically update your plugins, it’s time to learn how to safely delete plugins from your site.
Deleting Plugins
As part of good WordPress site management practices, it’s a good idea to uninstall plugins that you no longer require. This reduces resources on your server and also will help you avoid causes of problems.
In this section, we show you how to safely uninstall 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 reinstall your site.
To delete a plugin, go to your WP admin menu and select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins screen, find the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is inactive.
Hint: Inactive plugins use a different background color than active plugins and display an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, then click on Deactivate before continuing with your plugin deletion …
Next, click Delete …
If you want to have a look at all the files that will be deleted before proceeding, then click on the “Click to view entire list of files which will be deleted” link in the “Delete Plugin” page …
All files associated with the plugin that you are about to delete will be listed on your screen …
If you are certain about going ahead and deleting these plugin, just click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugins and related files will be deleted …
Deleting Multiple WP Plugins In Bulk
You can delete all inactive plugins at once, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be removed.
Note: To delete any plugins that are presently 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, select Deactivate from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click the Apply button …
The selected plugins will be deactivated …
To delete all or some of the inactive plugins, go to the “Plugins” area and click on the Inactive link in the Plugins menu …
Select all of the plugins you want to delete by either placing a tick next to their check box, or click on the checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select and delete all inactive plugins …
Once you have selected all of the plugins that you want deleted, choose Delete from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click Apply …
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 would like to go ahead and remove all of the plugins listed …
Your plugins will be deleted …
WordPress Management Tools For WordPress Plugins
As well as the methods shown above, you can install 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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"This is AMAZING! I had learnt about how to use WordPress previously, but this covers absolutely everything and more!! Incredible value! Thank you!" - Monique, Warrior Forum