In another post, we provide an overview of what WordPress plugins are about and how you can use these to add new features to your website or blog without editing code.
To read the article, go here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn why WordPress plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to safely upgrade and remove plugins from your site, and discover some tools to help you better manage your plugins if you need to run or manage multiple WordPress sites.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Your WordPress Plugins Need Upgrading
New versions of WordPress are regularly released (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in previous software releases, and 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 updates for plugins each time a new version of WordPress is announced.
This is because most plugins for WordPress are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes code in the new WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were created and tested to work with a previous version. When this happens, there is a potential for conflicts to sometimes occur.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are quite proactive when it comes to ensuring 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 simply keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is really 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 errors or problems.
The tutorial below explains how to upgrade and delete plugins in WordPress without requiring coding skills.
How To Automatically Upgrade And Delete WordPress Plugins In The WordPress Admin Dashboard – Tutorial
WordPress provides several ways of letting you know when plugins on your site need to be updated.
For example, you can see how many plugins need updating as soon as you log into your Admin area by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
In the example below, nine WP plugins have older versions that need to be updated …
You can also view how many plugins need updating from your WP Admin Toolbar (in the screenshot below, you can again see that 9 plugins need to be updated) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also lets you know which plugins need updating …
As well as providing information about plugins that have available updates, the Plugins screen provides links to the plugin developer pages and gives you the option to update the plugins with one-click …
Let’s start by showing you how to upgrade one WordPress plugin at a time.
Upgrading WordPress Plugins One At A Time
We strongly recommend making a full backup of your data and files before updating your website.
In your dashboard menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” page. The list of plugins can run down your page for a while, depending on the number of plugins you have added to your blog …
(Plugins Section)
Useful Information:
If you have too many plugins installed and would like to reduce the number of plugins showing on the page, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins page and type in a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show on the page by default), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
Your Plugins page 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 “Search” field …
You will see plugin information in different backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (active vs. inactive and outdated vs up-to-date) …
Plugins in need of upgrading show the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin Name] available” …
Find the plugin that needs updating 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 area …
Repeat the above process for any other plugins on your site that need updating, or see the section below if you have several plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update all plugins in bulk.
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Now that you know how to upgrade one plugin at a time, it’s time to learn how to update a bunch of WordPress plugins simultaneously.
How To Update Multiple WordPress Plugins Simultaneously
To update multiple WordPress plugins in one go using the automatic upgrading feature, go to the “Plugins” area and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Tick 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 dropdown menu above the list of plugins, select Update …
Click Apply …
Your selected plugins will automatically begin updating …
After all upgrades are completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to the Plugins area, or choose another option from the dashboard menu …
Once all plugins are up-to-date, the plugin notifications 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 up-to-date, update alerts disappear)
Now that you know how to automatically upgrade WordPress plugins, let’s take a look at how to delete plugins safely from your blog or website.
Deleting WP Plugins
At times, you may choose to delete WordPress plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This reduces resources on your server and also helps to eliminate causes of problems.
In this section, you will learn how to safely remove unused plugins from your site or blog.
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 remove a plugin, go to your main menu and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins section, find the plugin you want to delete 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, click on Deactivate before continuing with your plugin deletion …
Click Delete …
If you would like to have a look at 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 …
The entire list of files associated with the plugin selected for deletionwill display on your screen …
If you are positively sure that you would like to proceed and delete the selected plugin, just click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugin(s) will be deleted …
Bulk-Deleting WordPress 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 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) …
Next, choose Deactivate from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click the Apply button …
Your selected plugins will be deactivated …
To delete all or some of the inactive plugins, go to the “Plugins” area and click on the Inactive link on the main menu …
Select all of the plugins you want to delete by either placing a tick next to their checkbox, or click on the checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select and delete all inactive plugins …
Once you have selected all of the plugins that you want to delete, select 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 absolutely sure that you want to proceed to the next step and remove all of the plugins listed …
All plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Managing WP Plugins
In addition to the methods shown above, you can use a range of third-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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