In a separate article, we provide a detailed explanation of what WP plugins are all about and how you can use plugins to easily enhance your site’s capabilities.
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, and some plugin management tools if you currently manage multiple WordPress sites.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Some WordPress Plugins Need To Be Updated
New versions of WordPress are frequently being released (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in older 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 whenever WordPress releases a new version.
This is because most WordPress plugins are created by external developers, so sometimes the code in the newly-released WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were created and tested to work with a previous version. When this happens, there is a potential for problems to 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 required). All you need to do on your end, is simply maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is really simple and easy to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date and removing old plugins you no longer use is an essential aspect of good WordPress management and helps to avoid errors or conflicts.
The WordPress step-by-step tutorial below explains how to upgrade and delete plugins safely in WordPress without touching web code.
How To Automatically Update And Delete Plugins Safely In Your WP Dashboard – Tutorial
WordPress utilizes a few methods of letting you know when your plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can immediately see how many plugins need updating inside your Admin area by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, you can see that 9 WP plugins are out of date and need to be updated …
You can also view how many plugins need updating from your WP Administration Toolbar (in the screenshot below, you can again see that 9 plugins need updating) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also lets you know which plugins need to be updated …
As well as providing information about plugins that have updates available, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin developer sites and gives you the option to update your plugin instantly …
Let’s start by showing you how to update individual WordPress plugins.
Upgrading Individual WordPress Plugins
We recommend making a backup of your site files and database before updating your website.
From your admin menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” area will display in your browser. The list of plugins can flow down your screen for some length, depending on the number of plugins you have added to your blog …
(The WordPress Plugins Screen)
Additional Information:
If you have too many plugins 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 screen and enter a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show on the screen by default), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
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” function …
You will see plugin information in different backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (inactive vs. active and up-to-date vs. out-of-date) …
Plugins that need upgrading have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin Name] available” …
Find 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 happens “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat this process for all plugins on your site that need updating, or see the section below if you have a number of 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 update one WordPress plugin at a time, let’s show you how to update many plugins simultaneously.
Bulk-Upgrading Plugins
To update multiple plugins in a single operation from your admin area, go to the “Plugins” section 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 each plugin you want to upgrade by checking their individual boxes …
In the Bulk Actions drop-down menu at the top of the page, choose Update …
Click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will all be updated at once …
After all plugin upgrades are finished, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to the Plugins screen, or select another option from the WordPress admin 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 are now up-to-date!
(When plugins on your site are all up-to-date, notification icons disappear)
Now that you know how to upgrade WP plugins, let’s take a look at how to safely delete plugins from your WordPress site.
Deleting WP Plugins
As part of good WordPress site management practice, it’s a good idea to remove plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This helps to conserve resources on your server and eliminates causes of 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 site before installing, upgrading or deleting plugins, in case something goes wrong and you need to recover data or restore your site.
To remove a plugin, go to your main menu and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins screen, find the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is deactivated.
Hint: Inactive plugins use 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 …
Click Delete …
If you need to review a list of all the files that will be deleted before proceeding any further, then click on the “Click to view entire list of files which will be deleted” link in the “Delete Plugin” screen …
A complete list of files belonging to the plugin that you are about to remove will be listed on your screen …
If you are positively sure that you want to go ahead and delete the selected plugin, then click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugin(s) will be deleted …
How To Bulk-Delete WP Plugins
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be deleted.
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 check box, 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, specify Deactivate from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click Apply …
The selected plugins will be deactivated …
To delete all or some of the inactive plugins, go to the “Plugins” screen and click on the Inactive link in the Plugins menu …
Tick the check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to remove by checking their individual boxes …
Once you have ticked all the check boxes next to the plugins that you want deleted, choose Delete from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click Apply …
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 sure that you would like to go ahead and delete all of the plugins listed …
Your selected plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
WordPress Management Tools For WordPress Plugins
As well as the methods shown above, you can use a number of 3rd-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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