In a previous post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use plugins to easily expand your website’s capabilities.
To read this article, go here:
In this tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping plugins up-to-date, how to safely update and uninstall plugins from your site, and discover useful plugin management tools.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Many Of Your Plugins Need Upgrading
WordPress frequently updates its software (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in previous releases, and to improve existing features.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, there will typically be new new update notices for plugins every.
The reason for this, is because most plugins for WordPress are created by 3rd-party 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, conflicts can sometimes occur.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are very proactive when it comes to ensuring that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if this is required). All you have to do as a WordPress user, is maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is very simple to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins regularly updated and removing old plugins you no longer use is an essential aspect of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid errors and problems.
The WordPress tutorial below explains how to update and delete plugins inside your WordPress dashboard with no web programming knowledge necessary.
Upgrading And Deleting Plugins Safely From The WordPress Dashboard – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress uses a number of different methods to let you know when your plugins need updating.
For example, you can immediately see how many plugins are out-of-date inside your Admin area by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
In the screenshot below, 9 plugins have older versions that need updating …
You can also check how many plugins need to be updated from your WP Toolbar (in the screenshot below, you can see how many plugins have to be updated) …
The Plugins page (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also notifies you about plugins that need updating …
As well as providing information about which plugins have updates available, the Plugins screen provides links to the plugin download pages and gives you the option to update your plugin instantly …
Let’s start by learning how to upgrade one WordPress plugin at a time.
How To Update WordPress Plugins Individually
Always make a complete backup of your website before updating your blog or website.
From your WP admin menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” area will display in your browser. The list of plugins can go down your page for a while, depending on the number of plugins you have installed on your site …
(The WordPress Plugins Screen)
Tips:
If you have too many plugins installed 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 area and enter a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show on the screen by default, i.e. “999”), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
Your Plugins area will now be reduced in size with a ’numbered pages’ feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Search Plugins” box …
You will see plugin information in different color backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (active vs. inactive and out-of-date vs up-to-date) …
Plugins in need of updating have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin] 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 with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat this process for all 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 upgrade them all in one simple operation.
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Now that you know how to upgrade individual WordPress plugins, let’s show you how to bulk-upgrade plugins.
Bulk-Updating WP Plugins
To bulk-upgrade plugins 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 …
Tick the checkbox in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to update by checking their individual boxes …
In the Bulk Actions drop down menu above your plugin list, select Update …
And then click Apply …
Your selected plugins will begin updating …
Once all updates have been completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to the Plugins area, or go to another section of your dashboard …
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 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 WordPress plugins, let’s show you how to delete plugins from your WordPress blog or website.
How To Remove Plugins
Occasionally, you may decide to delete WP plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This decreases server resources and also help you avoid causes of problems.
In this section, we show you how to safely deactivate and delete 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 delete a plugin, go to your main menu and choose Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins area, locate the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is inactive.
Hint: Inactive plugins are listed in a different colored background than active plugins and display an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, then click on Deactivate before going any further …
Next, click on Delete …
If you want to have a look at all the files that will be deleted before taking the next step, then click on the “Click to view entire list of files which will be deleted” link in the “Delete Plugin” page …
All files associated with the plugin that you are about to delete will display on your screen …
If you are sure about going ahead and deleting the plugin, then click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugin(s) will be deleted from your server …
How To Safely Delete Several Plugins In Bulk
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 currently 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) …
Once you have done this, choose Deactivate from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click the Apply button …
All 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 on the main menu …
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 checkboxes next to the plugins that you want deleted, specify Delete from the Bulk Actions pull-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 remove all of the plugins listed …
The plugins will be deleted …
Managing WP Plugins – WordPress Tools
As well as the methods shown above, you can use other WordPress plugins that let you 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