In a previous blog post, we provide an overview of what WP plugins are all about and how you can use these to increase your web site’s functionality.
To read this article, go here:
In this tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping all WordPress plugins up-to-date, how to safely update and remove your WordPress plugins, and discover useful plugin management tools.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Many Plugins Need To Be Regularly Upgraded
New versions of WordPress are frequently being released (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in earlier releases, as well as to improve existing features or introduce new functionality to users.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, you can expect to see at least some new updates for WordPress plugins every.
This is because most WordPress plugins 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, problems can sometimes occur.
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 this is needed). All you need to do as a WordPress user, is maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is really simple to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date and deleting old plugins you no longer use is an essential aspect of good WordPress management and helps to avoid any potential problems and errors.
The WordPress tutorial below explains how to automatically update and delete plugins safely from the WP admin dashboard without requiring coding knowledge or skills.
Upgrading And Deleting WordPress Plugins In Your Dashboard – Tutorial
WordPress has a few methods to notify you when plugins need updating.
For example, you can immediately see how many plugins need to be updated inside your Administration site simply by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, 9 plugins are out of date and need updating …
You can also view how many plugins need to be updated from your WP Toolbar (the example below shows that a number of plugins should be updated) …
The Plugins screen (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also provides information about plugins that need updating …
As well as providing information about plugins that have updates available, the Plugins screen provides links to the plugin download pages and gives you the option to update the plugins with one-click …
Let’s start by learning how to update one WordPress plugin at a time.
How To Update Plugins One At A Time
Always make a backup of your data and files before updating your website or blog.
From your WP admin menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” area will display in your browser. This screen can be quite lengthy depending on the number of plugins you have added to your blog …
(Plugins Section)
Additional Information:
If you have too many plugins installed and would like to make this section more manageable, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins area and type in a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show up on the screen by default), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
Your Plugins page 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 Installed Plugins” box …
You will see plugin information in different backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (active vs. inactive and out-of-date vs up-to-date) …
Plugins that need upgrading 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 updating your plugins takes place “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat the above process for all plugins on your site that need updating, or refer to the section below if you have several plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update them all in bulk.
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Now that you know how to update one WP plugin at a time, let’s show you how to bulk-update plugins.
How To Upgrade Multiple Plugins Simultaneously
To upgrade multiple plugins in a single operation from your admin area, go to the “Plugins” page 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 only the plugins you want to update by checking their individual boxes …
In the Bulk Actions dropdown menu above the table of plugins, choose Update …
Click Apply …
Your selected plugins will begin the update process …
After your plugins have all been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to your Plugins section, or choose another option from the sidebar menu …
Once all plugins are 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 upgraded!
(When plugins on your site are up-to-date, update notices disappear)
Now that you know how to automatically update WordPress in your admin dashboard, it’s time to learn how to safely delete plugins from your site.
Deleting WordPress Plugins
Occasionally, you may choose to remove WP plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This can help to conserve resources on your server and help to reduce causes of problems.
In this section, you will learn how to safely delete unused plugins from your WordPress blog or 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 reinstall your site.
To delete a plugin, go to your WP admin menu and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins area, locate the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is inactive.
Hint: Inactive plugins are listed in 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 proceeding with your plugin deletion …
Once you have deactivated the plugin, click Delete …
If you want to review a list of 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 selected for deletionwill be listed on your screen …
If you are absolutely sure about going ahead and deleting the selected plugin, just click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugin(s) will be removed from your server …
Bulk-Deleting WordPress Plugins
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins on your site, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be cleared.
Note: To delete any plugins that are currently 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 check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …
Once you have done this, select Deactivate from the Bulk Actions drop down 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, select Delete from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click Apply …
A list of all selected plugins will be displayed 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 selected plugins …
All selected plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Managing Plugins
In addition to the methods shown above, you can install a number of 3rd-party tools 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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"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