In another article, we provide a detailed explanation of what WordPress plugins are about and how you can use plugins to easily expand your website’s functionality.
You can read this article here:
In this tutorial you will learn why WordPress plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to safely upgrade and remove plugins from your site, and discover practical plugin management tools if you plan to run or manage multiple WordPress sites.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Many Of Your WordPress Plugins Need Upgrading
New WordPress versions are regularly released (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in previous versions, and 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 3rd-party developers, so sometimes the code in the newly-released WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were developed and tested with a previous version. Whenever this happens, problems can sometimes develop.
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 needed). All you have to do as a website owner, is maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is really quick, simple and easy to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins regularly updated and deleting old plugins you no longer use is an essential aspect of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid any potential errors and conflicts.
The WordPress step-by-step tutorial below explains how to update and delete WordPress plugins without editing web code.
How To Automatically Upgrade And Delete Plugins Safely Inside Your Dashboard – Tutorial
WordPress utilizes several ways to alert you when plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can see ‘at a glance’ how many plugins need to be updated from your Admin area simply by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
In the screenshot below, you can see that nine WP plugins are out of date and need updating …
You can also view how many plugins need to be updated from your WordPress Toolbar (as shown below, several plugins should be brought up to date) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also lets you know which plugins need updating …
In addition to providing information about which plugins have available updates, the Plugins screen provides links to the plugin developer pages and gives you the option to update your plugins instantly …
Let’s start by learning how to update individual WordPress plugins.
Update Plugins Individually
Always make a full backup of your website before updating your website.
From your main menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” area will display in your browser. The screen can be quite lengthy depending on the number of plugins you have installed in your site …
(Plugins Screen)
Useful Information:
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 screen and enter a smaller number of items per page (by default, all plugins display on the page), then click Apply …
Your Plugins page will now be reduced in size with a ’numbered pages’ feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Search Plugins” field …
WordPress displays plugin information in different color backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (active vs. inactive and up-to-date vs. outdated) …
Plugins that need upgrading have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin] available” …
Locate the plugin that needs updating and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides fast plugin updates, so that updating your plugins happens “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat the above process for any other plugins on your site that need to be updated, or refer to the section below if you have several plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update all plugins in one simple operation.
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Now that you know how to upgrade plugins one at a time, let’s show you how to bulk-update WP plugins.
How To Bulk-Update Plugins
To bulk-update plugins using the automatic upgrading feature, go to the “Plugins” screen 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 each plugin you want to upgrade by checking its box …
In the Bulk Actions drop down menu above your plugin table, select Update …
And then click Apply …
Your selected plugins will automatically begin updating …
After all updates have been completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to your Plugins area, or select another option from the main menu …
Once all plugins are 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) …
All plugins have now been upgraded!
(When your site uses the latest version of all plugins, update icons do not display)
Now that you know how to automatically upgrade plugins, it’s time to learn how to delete plugins safely from your site or blog.
Deleting Plugins
At times, you may want to delete WP plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This helps to reduce resource usage and also will help you avoid potential problems.
In this section, you will learn how to remove 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 main menu and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins screen, locate 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 continuing with your plugin deletion …
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” screen …
The entire list of files associated with the plugin selected for removalwill display on your screen …
If you are positively certain that you want to proceed and delete these plugin files, just click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugins and related files will be removed from your server …
Bulk-Deleting 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 presently 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 checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …
Next, choose Deactivate from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click Apply …
Your 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 ticked all the check boxes next to the plugins that you want to delete, choose Delete from the Bulk Actions dropdown 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 would like to proceed to the next step and remove all of the selected plugins …
Your plugins will be deleted …
Management Tools For Plugins
In addition to the methods shown above, you can use Free and Paid WordPress plugins that help 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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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)