In another blog post, we provide a detailed explanation of what plugins are all about and how you can use plugins to add new features and functionality to your web site with no coding skills required.
You can read the article 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 some great plugin management tools.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Many WordPress Plugins Need To Be Regularly Upgraded
The WordPress software is constantly updated (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in previous software releases, and to improve existing features or introduce new functionality to users.
Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, you can expect to see at least some new new update notices for WordPress plugins every.
This is because most plugins for WordPress 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. Whenever this happens, issues can sometimes occur.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are fairly proactive when it comes to ensuring that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if required). All you need to do as a WordPress user, is maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is really easy to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins regularly updated and deleting old plugins you no longer use is an essential aspect of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid any potential conflicts or errors.
The WordPress tutorial below explains how to automatically update and delete plugins safely without requiring coding knowledge or skills.
How To Automatically Update And Delete Plugins – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress utilizes a number of different ways to let users know when plugins need updating.
For example, you can instantly see how many plugins are out-of-date as soon as you log into your Administration panel simply by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
In the screenshot below, you can see that 9 plugins are out of date and need updating …
You can also view how many plugins need updating from your WP Admin Toolbar (as shown below, nine plugins need updating) …
The Plugins page (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also lets you know which plugins need updating …
In addition to providing information about which plugins have updates available, 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 update one WP plugin at a time.
Update WordPress Plugins One At A Time
We recommend performing a full backup of your data and files before updating your website.
From your main menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” section will display in your browser. This table of plugins can be quite long depending on the number of plugins you have installed in your site …
(The WordPress Plugins Screen)
Useful 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 enter a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show up on the screen by default, i.e. “999”), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
Your Plugins section will now be made more manageable with a page scrolling feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Plugin Search” feature …
You will see plugin information in different color backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (active vs. inactive and outdated vs up-to-date) …
Plugins in need of updating have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin Name] available” …
Select the plugin that you want to update and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides smoother plugin updates, so that updating your plugins takes place with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat this process for any other plugins on your site that need to be updated, or see the section below if you have a number of plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update them all at once.
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Now that you know how to upgrade plugins individually, it’s time to learn how to update many WordPress plugins simultaneously.
Bulk-Upgrading Plugins
To bulk-update WP plugins simultaneously from your admin area, go to the “Plugins” screen and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Click on the check box 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 …
And then click Apply …
Your selected plugins will begin the update process …
Once all plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to the Plugins screen, or select another option from the main menu …
Once your plugins are all up-to-date, any plugin alerts will disappear (i.e. the “at-a-glance” indicators and “There is a new version of XYZ plugin available” notices no longer display on your screen, toolbar and menus) …
All plugins have now been upgraded!
(When your plugins are all up-to-date, the notification icons disappear)
Now that you know how to automatically update WP in the admin dashboard, let’s take a look at how to safely remove plugins safely from your WordPress blog or website.
How To Safely Remove WP Plugins
It’s a good idea to uninstall plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This decreases resource usage and help to eliminate problems.
In this section, we show you how to delete unused plugins from your WordPress blog or 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 dashboard menu and select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins area, find the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is inactive.
Hint: Inactive plugins use a different background color than active plugins and show an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, then click on Deactivate before continuing …
Click Delete …
If you would like to browse 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” section …
All files belonging to the plugin that you are about to remove will be listed on your screen …
If you are absolutely certain that you want to go ahead and delete the selected plugin, just click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugins and related files will be deleted …
Deleting Several Plugins At Once
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) …
Once you have done this, specify Deactivate from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click the Apply button …
All selected plugins will be deactivated …
Once you have deactivated your plugins, click on the Inactive link on the menu at the top of the page …
Tick the check box in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to remove by checking their individual boxes …
Once you have selected all of 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 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 remove all of the plugins listed …
All plugins will be deleted …
Useful WordPress Tools For Managing Plugins
As well as the methods shown above, you can install a range 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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"This is AMAZING! I had learnt about how to use WordPress previously, but this covers absolutely everything and more!! Incredible value! Thank you!" - Monique, Warrior Forum