In another article, we explain what plugins are and how you can use these to easily add new features or functionality to your site without touching code.
You can view this article here:
In this tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping all plugins up-to-date, how to automatically update and remove your WordPress plugins, and discover useful plugin management tools.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Many Of Your Plugins Need Updating
New WordPress versions are constantly being released (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in earlier software versions, as well as to improve existing features or introduce new functionality to WordPress users.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, you can expect to see at least some new new update notices for WordPress plugins each time a new version of WordPress is made available.
The reason for this, is because most plugins for WordPress are created by external developers, so sometimes code or features in the newly-released WordPress version conflict with plugins that were created and tested to work with a previous version. When this happens, conflicts can sometimes develop.
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 needed). All you have to do as a WordPress user, is simply keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is very quick, simple and easy to do.
Keeping your plugins up-to-date and removing old plugins you no longer use is part of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid any potential errors or conflicts.
The tutorial below explains how to automatically update and delete plugins safely inside the WordPress dashboard without requiring web coding or programming knowledge or skills.
Upgrading And Deleting Plugins Safely From Your Dashboard – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress provides a few methods to alert users when plugins need updating.
For example, you can instantly see how many plugins need updating inside your WP Dashboard just by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
In the example below, you can see that nine WP plugins have older versions that need updating …
You can also check how many plugins need updating from your WP Administration Toolbar (as shown below, a number of plugins require updating) …
The Plugins page (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also lets you know which plugins need updating …
In addition to providing information about plugins that have available updates, the Plugins page provides links to the plugin developer sites and gives you the option to update your plugin with one-click …
Let’s start by learning how to upgrade individual WP plugins.
Upgrade WordPress Plugins Individually
Always make a full backup of your site files and database before updating your website.
In your WP admin menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” page. The list of plugins can be quite long depending on the number of plugins you have installed on your blog …
(The WordPress Plugins Screen)
Notes:
If you have too many plugins and would like to reduce the number of plugins displayed on your screen, 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 area will now be made more manageable 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 the plugins (active vs. inactive and out-of-date vs up-to-date) …
Plugins that require upgrading have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin Name] available” …
Locate the plugin that you want to update and click on the update now link …
WordPress has done away with the loading screen when updating plugins and streamlined the process, so that updating your plugins happens “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat the above process for any other plugins on your site that need updating, or refer to the section below if you have many plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update them all at the same time.
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Now that you know how to upgrade one WP plugin at a time, the next step is to learn how to upgrade a bunch of plugins simultaneously.
Bulk-Upgrading WordPress Plugins
To update multiple WordPress plugins simultaneously 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 on the check box next to 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 pull-down menu at the top of the page, choose Update …
Click Apply …
Your selected plugins will all be updated at once …
Once all updates have completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to your Plugins section, or select another option from the dashboard menu …
Once your plugins are all up-to-date, the update reminders will disappear (i.e. the “at-a-glance” indicators and “There is a new version of XYZ plugin available” notices no longer display) …
All plugins are now up-to-date!
(When your site uses the latest version of all plugins, notification icons do not display)
Now that you know how to automatically upgrade plugins, it’s time to learn how to remove plugins from your WordPress site.
How To Delete WP Plugins
At times, you may decide to remove plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This can decrease resources on your server and will help you avoid problems.
In this section, you will learn how to safely uninstall unused plugins from your 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 admin menu and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins section, locate the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is inactive.
Hint: Inactive plugins are listed in 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 continuing with your plugin deletion …
Next, click on Delete …
If you need to review a list of all the files that will be deleted before proceeding, then click on the “Click to view entire list of files which will be deleted” link in the “Delete Plugin” screen …
All files belonging to the plugin selected for deletionwill display on your screen …
If you are sure that you would like to proceed and delete the selected plugin files, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugin(s) will be removed from your server …
How To Safely Bulk-Delete WP 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, 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 checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …
Next, specify Deactivate from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click Apply …
Your 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 …
Click on the checkbox next to 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, choose Delete from the Bulk Actions drop-down menu …
Click Apply …
A list of all selected plugins will be displayed 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 sure that you want to proceed to the next step and delete all of the plugins listed …
Your plugins will be deleted …
WordPress Tools For Managing WordPress Plugins
In addition to the methods shown above, you can use a range of third-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.
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"I have used the tutorials to teach all of my clients and it has probably never been so easy for everyone to learn WordPress ... Now I don't need to buy all these very expensive video courses that often don't deliver what they promise." - Stefan Wendt, Internet Marketing Success Group