In another post, we provide a detailed explanation of what plugins are all about and how you can use plugins to easily expand your site’s functionality.
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 remove plugins, and useful tips to help you better manage your plugins.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Plugins Need Updating
New versions of WordPress are regularly released (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in previous software releases, as well as to improve existing features or introduce new ones.
Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, you can expect to see at least some new new update notifications for plugins whenever new WordPress versions are announced.
This is because most WordPress plugins are created by external developers, so sometimes code in the new WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were built for a previous version. When this happens, there is a potential for issues to sometimes occur.
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 this is needed). All you need to do on your end, is just maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is really quick, simple 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 site management and helps to avoid any potential conflicts and errors.
The tutorial below explains how to automatically update and delete plugins safely inside the WordPress dashboard without touching web code.
Updating And Deleting Plugins – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress utilizes a few methods of letting users know when plugins need updating.
For example, you can see how many plugins are out-of-date from your Administration area by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, you can see that nine WP plugins are out of date and need updating …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 WP Admin Toolbar (in the example below, you can see how many plugins should be updated) …
The Plugins screen (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you how many plugins need to be updated …
In addition to providing information about plugins that have updates available, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin download pages and gives you the option to update your plugin individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by showing you how to update individual WordPress plugins.
How To Upgrade WordPress Plugins One At A Time
We strongly recommend making a complete backup of your data and files before making any upgrades to your website.
In your dashboard menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” screen will display in your browser. The table of plugins can go down your page for a while, depending on the number of plugins you have added to 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 area and enter a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show up on the screen by default, i.e. “999”), then click Apply …
Your Plugins area 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 Installed Plugins” function …
You will see information about plugins in different color backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (inactive vs. active and up-to-date vs. outdated) …
Plugins that need updating have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin Name] available” …
Select the plugin that needs to be updated and click on the update now link …
WordPress has done away with the loading screen when updating plugins and streamlined the process, so that the process of updating your plugins happens “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat this process for any other plugins on your site that need updating, or see the section below if you have many plugins that are out-of-date and would like to upgrade all plugins in one simple operation.
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Now that you know how to update individual WP plugins, the next step is to learn how to update multiple WP plugins simultaneously.
Bulk-Upgrading WP Plugins
To bulk-update plugins simultaneously directly inside your dashboard, go to the “Plugins” screen and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Click on 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 drop-down menu above the table of plugins, select Update …
And then click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will begin to update automatically …
Once all plugin updates are finished, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to your Plugins area, or select another option from the WordPress dashboard menu …
Once your plugins are all up-to-date, any plugin alerts 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 updated!
(When your plugins are up-to-date, update alerts no longer show)
Now that you know how to automatically upgrade WordPress plugins, let’s show you how to safely delete plugins from your WordPress blog or website.
How To Remove WordPress Plugins
It’s a good idea to remove plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This reduces server resources and also help to minimize causes of some problems.
In this section, you will learn how to safely remove unused plugins from your WordPress site.
Always create a full back up of your 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 admin menu and choose Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins screen, find the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is inactive.
Hint: Inactive plugins have a different background color than active plugins and display an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, then click on Deactivate before going any further …
Click on Delete …
If you want to browse 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” section …
A complete list of files associated with the plugin selected for removalwill display on your screen …
If you are certain about going ahead and deleting these plugin, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugin(s) will be deleted from your WordPress installation …
How To Safely Delete Multiple WordPress Plugins In Bulk
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, 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 checkbox, or selecting the check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …
Next, specify Deactivate from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click Apply …
All 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 checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select and delete all inactive plugins …
Once you have selected all the plugins that you want to delete, specify Delete from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click the Apply button …
A list of all selected plugins will show up 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 sure that you would like to proceed to the next step and delete all of the plugins listed …
Your selected plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
WordPress Tools For Managing WP Plugins
In addition to the methods shown above, you can use WordPress plugins 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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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now