In a separate blog post, we provide an overview of what plugins are all about and how you can use these to easily add new features to your web site with no coding knowledge required.
You can read the article here:
In this tutorial you will learn why WordPress plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to update and uninstall plugins from your site, and discover practical plugin management tips.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Some Plugins Need To Be Upgraded
The WordPress software is constantly updated (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 functionality to users.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, you can expect to see at least some new new update notifications for WordPress plugins every.
The reason for this, is because most WordPress plugins are created by external developers, so sometimes code in the newly-released WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were developed for a previous version. When this happens, issues can sometimes develop.
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 this is required). All you need to do as a website owner, is keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is very simple to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins regularly updated and deleting old plugins you no longer use is an essential aspect of good WordPress management and helps to avoid any potential conflicts and errors.
The WordPress tutorial below explains how to automatically update and delete plugins inside your dashboard without web programming skills or knowledge needed.
How To Upgrade And Delete WordPress Plugins In Your Dashboard – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress provides a number of different ways to let you know when your plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can see ‘at a glance’ how many plugins are out-of-date as soon as you log into your Admin area simply by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
In the example below, you can see that nine WordPress plugins are out of date and need to be updated …
You can also view how many plugins need updating from your WP Admin Toolbar (the screenshot below shows how many plugins need updating) …
The Plugins screen (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you which plugins need updating …
As well as providing information about which plugins have available updates, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin download sites and gives you the option to update your plugins with one-click …
Let’s start by learning how to upgrade one plugin at a time.
Update Individual Plugins
Always make a complete backup of your site files and database before updating your website or blog.
From your main menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” section will display in your browser. The table of plugins can flow down your page for some length, depending on the number of plugins you have added to your blog …
(Plugins Page)
Useful Information:
If you have too many plugins and would like to reduce the number of plugins displaying on the page, 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 section 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” field …
WordPress displays information about plugins in different color backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (inactive vs. active and up-to-date vs. outdated) …
Plugins that need upgrading have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Insert Plugin Name] available” …
Locate the plugin that needs to be updated and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides streamlined plugin updates, so that the process of updating your plugins takes place with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat this process for any other plugins on your site that need updating, or see the section below if you have many 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 update individual plugins, it’s time to learn how to bulk-update plugins.
How To Bulk-Update Plugins
To bulk-upgrade WordPress plugins using the automatic update feature, go to the “Plugins” section and click on the Update Available 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 upgrade by checking their individual boxes …
In the Bulk Actions pull-down menu above your plugin table, select Update …
And then click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will begin to update automatically …
After all updates have completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to the Plugins area, or go to another section of your dashboard …
Once all plugins are up-to-date, the plugin notifications 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) …
You have updated all plugins on your site!
(When your plugins are up-to-date, notification icons do not display)
Now that you know how to automatically upgrade your plugins, it’s time to learn how to safely remove plugins safely from your WordPress site.
Deleting WP Plugins
At times, you may want to delete WordPress plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This can help to conserve server resources and helps to eliminate causes of some problems.
In this section, we show you how to deactivate and delete unused plugins from your site or blog.
Always create 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 reinstall your site.
To remove a plugin, go to your admin menu and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins screen, locate the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is deactivated.
Hint: Inactive plugins appear 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 proceeding with your plugin deletion …
Next, click on Delete …
If you want 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” page …
All files belonging to the plugin that you are about to delete will be listed on your screen …
If you are absolutely sure about going ahead and deleting these plugin files, just click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugin(s) will be removed from your server …
How To Safely Delete Several WP Plugins At Once
You can delete all inactive plugins at once, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be removed.
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 drop down menu …
Click the Apply button …
Your selected plugins will be deactivated …
To delete all or some of the inactive plugins on your site, go to the “Plugins” screen and click on the Inactive link on the main menu …
Click on the checkbox in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to remove by checking its box …
Once you have selected all of the plugins that you want deleted, 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 want to proceed to the next step and remove all of the plugins listed …
Your plugins will be deleted …
Management Tools For Plugins
In addition to the methods shown above, you can install a number of tools that let you 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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