In another article, we provide a detailed explanation of what WordPress plugins are about and how you can use these to easily add new features or functionality to your website with no coding skills required.
You can view this article here:
In this tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping all WordPress plugins up-to-date, how to easily update and delete plugins, and some plugin management tools if you need to run multiple WordPress sites or blogs.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Many Of Your Plugins Need Upgrading
The WordPress software is regularly updated (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in previous versions, and to improve existing features or introduce new functionality to WordPress users.
Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, there will typically be new updates for WordPress plugins each time a new WordPress version is made available.
This is because most WordPress plugins are created by external developers, so sometimes code in the new WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were created and tested to work with a previous version. Whenever this happens, problems can sometimes develop.
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 required). All you have to do as a website owner, is maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is really simple and easy to do.
Keeping your plugins up-to-date and removing old plugins you no longer use is part of good WordPress management and helps to avoid any problems and errors.
The tutorial below explains how to update and delete plugins safely in your dashboard without editing web code.
Updating And Deleting Plugins – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress provides several methods to let you know when your plugins need updating.
For example, you can instantly see how many plugins are out-of-date from your Admin area just by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
In the screenshot below, 9 WordPress plugins need updating …
You can also see how many plugins need to be updated from your WP Toolbar (in the example below, you can see how many plugins need updating) …
The Plugins screen (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you what plugins need to be updated …
As well as providing information about plugins that have available updates, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin developer pages and gives you the option to update the plugins individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by showing you how to upgrade one plugin at a time.
Updating Plugins One At A Time
Always make a complete backup of your site files and database before making any changes to your website or blog.
From your WP admin menu, go to 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 …
(Plugins Screen)
Useful Information:
If you have too many plugins installed and would like to reduce the number of plugins showing on your screen, 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 the ‘Apply’ button …
Your Plugins area will now be reduced in size with a pagination feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Search” box …
You will see plugin information in different backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (active vs. inactive and up-to-date vs. outdated) …
Plugins that need updating show the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin] available” …
Select the plugin that needs updating and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides streamlined plugin updates, so that updating your plugins happens “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat the above process for all 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 upgrade them all at once.
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Now that you know how to upgrade one WordPress plugin at a time, it’s time to learn how to upgrade multiple WP plugins simultaneously.
How To Update Various Plugins
To upgrade multiple WP plugins simultaneously using the automatic update feature, go to the “Plugins” page and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Tick the checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to update by checking its box …
In the Bulk Actions pull-down menu above the table of plugins, select Update …
And then click Apply …
Your selected plugins will begin to update automatically …
After the update process has completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to the Plugins screen, or visit a different section of your dashboard …
Once all plugins are up-to-date, the plugin notifications 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!
(When your site uses the latest version of all plugins, notification icons do not display)
Now that you know how to update plugins, let’s take a look at how to safely delete plugins safely from your blog or website.
Deleting Plugins
It’s a good idea to uninstall inactive plugins. This can decrease resources on your server and also eliminate causes of problems.
In this section, you will learn how to remove unused plugins from your 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 restore your site.
To delete a plugin, go to your admin menu and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins section, find the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is inactive.
Hint: Inactive plugins appear in a different colored background than active plugins and display 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 have a look at 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 belonging to the plugin that you are about to remove will display on your screen …
If you are positively sure about going ahead and deleting the selected plugin, just click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugins and related files will be removed from your WordPress installation …
How To 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 presently active, you must first 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, choose Deactivate from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click Apply …
The selected plugins will be deactivated …
Once you have deactivated these plugins, click on the Inactive link on the menu at the top of the page …
Select all of the plugins you want to delete by either placing a tick next to their check box, or click on the check box 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 show up 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 remove all of the plugins listed …
The selected plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Managing Plugins
As well as the methods shown above, you can use WordPress plugins 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.
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