In a separate blog post, we provide a detailed explanation of what plugins are all about and how you can use plugins to add new features to your website or blog with no technical knowledge required.
You can read this article here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping your plugins up-to-date, how to easily upgrade and delete your WordPress plugins, and some great plugin management tips.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Some Plugins Need To Be Upgraded
New versions of WordPress are frequently being released (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in previous versions, as well as to improve existing features or introduce new ones.
Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, there will typically be new new update notifications for WordPress plugins every.
This is because most plugins for WordPress are created by third-party developers, so sometimes the code in the newly-released WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were built for a previous version. Whenever this happens, conflicts can sometimes occur.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are very proactive when it comes to making sure that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if this is needed). All you have to do as a WordPress user, is simply maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is very quick, simple and easy to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date and deleting old plugins you no longer use is part of good WordPress management and helps to avoid any potential errors or problems.
The step-by-step tutorial below explains how to update and delete plugins without editing web code.
How To Automatically Upgrade And Delete Plugins In The WordPress Dashboard – Tutorial
WordPress utilizes a number of different ways to notify users when plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can see how many plugins need updating inside your WP Dashboard by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, you can see that 9 WP plugins are out of date and need to be updated …
You can also tell how many plugins need updating from your WordPress Admin Toolbar (in the example below, you can again see that 9 plugins have to be updated) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you which plugins need updating …
As well as providing information about which plugins have updates available, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin developer sites and gives you the option to update your plugin individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by learning how to upgrade plugins one at a time.
Upgrading Plugins Individually
Always make a complete backup of your website before making any upgrades to your website.
In your admin menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” section. The list of plugins can be quite lengthy depending on how many plugins you have added to your blog …
(WordPress Plugins Screen)
Useful Information:
If you have too many plugins installed 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 type in a smaller number of items per page (by default, all plugins display on the page), then click Apply …
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 “Search” feature …
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 updating have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin] available” …
Find the plugin that needs to be updated and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides simpler plugin updates, so that the process of updating your plugins happens with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat the above process for all 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 all plugins at once.
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Now that you know how to update one WordPress plugin at a time, let’s show you how to update a bunch of WP plugins simultaneously.
Bulk-Updating WordPress Plugins
To update multiple WP plugins at the same time using the automatic upgrading feature, go to the “Plugins” page and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Click on the check box 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 drop-down menu above the plugin list, select Update …
Click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will automatically begin to update …
After all plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to your Plugins section, or select 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 to their latest version!
(When your plugins are up-to-date, update alerts no longer show)
Now that you know how to automatically upgrade plugins, let’s show you how to remove plugins from your WordPress blog or website.
How To Safely Remove Plugins
Occasionally, you may decide to remove plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This helps to reduce server resources and eliminate causes of some problems.
In this section, we show you how to deactivate and 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 reinstall your site.
To remove a plugin, go to your admin menu and select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins section, find the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is deactivated.
Hint: Inactive plugins are listed in 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 proceeding …
Click Delete …
If you need 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” section …
The entire list of files belonging to the plugin selected for deletionwill be listed on your screen …
If you are absolutely sure that you want to go ahead and delete the selected plugin, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugins and related files will be deleted from your WordPress installation …
Deleting Several Plugins At Once
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins on your site, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be deleted.
Note: To delete any plugins that are currently active, your will 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 check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …
Once you have done this, choose Deactivate from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click Apply …
Your selected plugins will be deactivated …
Once you have deactivated your plugins, click on the Inactive 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 remove by checking its box …
Once you have selected all the plugins that you want to delete, select Delete from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click the Apply button …
A list of all selected plugins will display 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 absolutely certain that you want to go ahead and delete all of the plugins listed …
All plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Managing WordPress Plugins – WordPress Tools
In addition to the methods shown above, you can install a range of tools 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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