In a previous blog post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use these to easily extend your site’s functionality.

To read this article, go here:

• Add New Features And Functionality To Your Web Site With Plugins

In this tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping all plugins up-to-date, how to update and delete plugins, and some great tools to help you better manage your plugins if you need to run or manage multiple WordPress sites.

How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins

Why Many WordPress Plugins Need Upgrading

New versions of WordPress are regularly released (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in older software releases, as well as to improve existing features or introduce new functionality to users.

Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, there will typically be new updates for WordPress plugins every.

This is because most plugins for WordPress are created by third-party developers, so sometimes features in the newly-released WordPress version conflict with plugins that were built for a previous version. Whenever this happens, there is a potential for problems to sometimes develop.

Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are quite proactive when it comes to making sure that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if required). All you need to do on your end, is just maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is really simple, quick and easy to do.

Keeping your plugins up-to-date and removing old plugins you no longer need is an essential aspect of good WordPress management and helps to avoid problems or errors.

The step-by-step tutorial below explains how to automatically update and delete plugins in WordPress without web coding knowledge or skills needed.

How To Upgrade And Delete Plugins Safely Inside Your WordPress Dashboard – Tutorial

WordPress utilizes a few ways to let users know when plugins need updating.

For example, you can see ‘at a glance’ how many plugins are out-of-date inside your Administration area simply by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.

In the screenshot below, you can see that 9 plugins are out of date and need updating …

You can also tell how many plugins need updating from your WordPress Toolbar (as shown below, 9 plugins should be brought up to date) …

The Plugins page (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you what plugins need to be updated …

In addition to providing information about which plugins have available updates, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin developer sites and gives you the option to update the plugins instantly …

Let’s start by showing you how to update plugins one at a time.

Updating Individual A Plugin

Always make a full backup of your website before making any updates to your website.

From your dashboard menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …

You will be taken to the “Plugins” section. The screen can be quite lengthy depending on how many plugins you have installed in your blog …

(Plugins Section)

Tips:

If you have too many plugins and would like to make this section more manageable, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins screen 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 Plugins” feature …

WordPress displays information about plugins in different backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (inactive vs. active and up-to-date vs. outdated) …

Plugins in need of upgrading display the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin] available” …

Find 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 update process, so that updating your plugins happens “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins area …

Repeat this process for all plugins on your site that need updating, or see the section below if you have several plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update them all in bulk.

***

Now that you know how to upgrade one plugin at a time, it’s time to learn how to bulk-update plugins.

How To Upgrade Several WP Plugins

To bulk-upgrade WordPress 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 check box in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to upgrade by checking their individual boxes …

In the Bulk Actions drop down menu at the top of the page, select Update …

Click Apply …

The plugins you have selected will begin updating …

Once all plugin updates are done, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to your Plugins area, or choose another option from the sidebar menu …

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) …

You have updated all plugins on your site!

(When your site or blog uses the latest version of all plugins, notification icons do not display)

Now that you know how to upgrade your inside the WP dashboard, it’s time to learn how to safely remove plugins safely from your site.

Deleting Plugins

At times, you may choose to delete WordPress plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This helps to conserve resource usage and also help you avoid causes of some problems.

In this section, we show you how to safely remove unused plugins from your WordPress 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 main menu and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …

In the Plugins area, locate the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is deactivated.

Hint: Inactive plugins use a different colored background than active plugins and show an “Activate” link below the plugin name …

If the plugin is active, then click on Deactivate before continuing with your plugin deletion …

Next, click on Delete …

If you would like to have a look at 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 selected for removalwill be listed on your screen …

If you are absolutely certain about going ahead and deleting the selected plugin files, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …

The selected plugin(s) will be removed from your server …

How To Delete Several WordPress Plugins In Bulk

You can delete all inactive plugins at once, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be uninstalled.

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 check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …

Once you have done this, specify Deactivate from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …

Click the Apply button …

All 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 …

Click on 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 drop down menu …

Click Apply …

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 sure that you would like to proceed to the next step and delete all of the selected plugins …

Your selected 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 install a number of 3rd-party tools 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.

***