In a separate post, we provide an overview of what WordPress plugins are all about and how you can use these to easily add new features and functionality to your web site without touching code.
You can read this article here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date, how to update and uninstall your WordPress plugins, and discover some tips to help you better manage your plugins if you currently run multiple WordPress sites or blogs.
Why Many Of Your Plugins Need Frequent Updating
The WordPress software is regularly updated (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in earlier releases, as well as to improve existing features or introduce new ones.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, there will typically be new new update notices for WordPress plugins each time a new WordPress version is released.
The reason for this, is because most WordPress plugins are created by third-party developers, so sometimes the code in the newly-released WordPress version conflict 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 quite proactive when it comes to ensuring that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if needed). All you need to do as a website owner, is simply maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is very simple and easy to do.
Keeping your plugins up-to-date and removing old plugins you no longer use is an essential aspect of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid potential errors or conflicts.
The tutorial below explains how to upgrade and delete plugins safely in WordPress with no web coding knowledge needed.
How To Upgrade And Delete Plugins – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress has several ways to alert users when plugins need updating.
For example, you can tell immediately how many plugins need updating as soon as you log into your Admin area just by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
In the example below, nine plugins have older versions that need updating …
You can also see how many plugins need updating from your WP Toolbar (in the screenshot below, you can see how many plugins should be updated) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also lets you know which plugins need updating …
In addition to providing information about plugins that have updates available, the Plugins page provides links to the plugin developer pages and gives you the option to update your plugin individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by showing you how to upgrade WordPress plugins individually.
Update Individual WordPress Plugins
Always make a complete backup of your site files and database before updating your blog or website.
In your main menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” area. The page can be quite lengthy depending on the number of plugins you have installed in your site …
(The WordPress Plugins Section)
Additional Information:
If you have too many plugins installed and would like to make this section more manageable, 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 Apply …
Your Plugins area will now be reduced in size 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 backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (active vs. inactive and up-to-date vs. out-of-date) …
Plugins in need of updating display the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin Name] available” …
Select the plugin that needs updating and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides smoother plugin updates, so that the process of updating your plugins takes place “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat the above 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 at the same time.
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Now that you know how to update one plugin at a time, it’s time to learn how to upgrade many plugins simultaneously.
Bulk-Updating Plugins
To bulk-update WordPress plugins from your admin area, go to the “Plugins” area 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 only the plugins you want to upgrade by checking their individual boxes …
In the Bulk Actions dropdown menu above the list of plugins, choose Update …
And then click Apply …
Your selected plugins will update all at once …
After all plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to the Plugins area, or choose a different section of your dashboard …
Once your plugins are all 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) …
You have updated all plugins on your site to their latest version!
(When your plugins are all up-to-date, update alerts no longer show)
Now that you know how to automatically upgrade your inside the admin dashboard, let’s take a look at how to delete plugins safely from your WordPress site.
How To Safely Remove WordPress Plugins
As part of good WordPress blog management, it’s a good idea to delete plugins that you no longer need. This decreases resources on your server and will help you avoid causes of problems.
In this section, we show you how to delete unused plugins from your WordPress blog or site.
We strongly recommend creating 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 WP admin menu and select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins page, find the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is inactive.
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, then click on Deactivate before proceeding with your plugin deletion …
Next, click on Delete …
If you would like to browse 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 …
All files associated with the plugin that you are about to remove will display on your screen …
If you are positively sure about going ahead and deleting these plugin files, then click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugin(s) will be deleted …
How To Safely Bulk-Delete Plugins
You can delete all inactive plugins at once, 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 pull-down 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 …
Tick the check box next to 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 selected all the plugins that you want deleted, specify Delete from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click the Apply button …
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 absolutely certain that you want to go ahead and delete all of the plugins listed …
All plugins will be deleted …
WordPress Tools For Managing Plugins
As well as the methods shown above, you can use a number of tools that help 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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"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum