In another article, we provide a detailed explanation of what WordPress plugins are all about and how you can use these to expand your website’s functionality.
You can view this article here:
In this tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping WordPress plugins up-to-date, how to automatically update and uninstall plugins from your site, and discover useful plugin management tools.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Some WordPress Plugins Need Upgrading
New versions of WordPress are frequently being released (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in older releases, as well as to improve existing features.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, there will typically be new new update notifications for WordPress plugins whenever new WordPress versions are announced.
This is because most plugins for WordPress are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes features in the newly-released WordPress version conflict with plugins that were developed and tested with a previous version. When this happens, problems can sometimes develop.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are quite proactive when it comes to making sure that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if this is needed). All you need to do as a website owner, is just maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is really quick, simple and easy to do.
Keeping your plugins regularly updated and removing old plugins you no longer need is an essential aspect of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid conflicts and errors.
The tutorial below explains how to automatically update and delete plugins safely without requiring web coding or programming knowledge or skills.
How To Automatically Upgrade And Delete Plugins Safely – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress uses several ways to let you know when plugins on your blog need to be updated.
For example, you can immediately see how many plugins need updating as soon as you log into your WordPress Dashboard just by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
In the example below, you can see that nine WP plugins need to be updated …
You can also view how many plugins need to be updated from your WP Toolbar (as shown below, 9 plugins should be updated) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also notifies you about plugins that need to be updated …
In addition to providing information about plugins that have updates available, the Plugins screen provides links to the plugin download pages and gives you the option to update the plugins instantly …
Let’s start by learning how to update plugins individually.
Upgrade Plugins One At A Time
We strongly recommend making a backup of your website before updating your website.
From your WP admin menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” screen. The list of plugins can go down your page for some length, depending on the number of plugins you have added to your site …
(WordPress Plugins Page)
Notes:
If you have too many plugins installed and would like to reduce the number of plugins displaying on the 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 up on the page by default), then click Apply …
Your Plugins page 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 Plugins” box …
You will see information about plugins in different color backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (active vs. inactive and up-to-date vs. outdated) …
Plugins that require upgrading display the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin] 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 takes place “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat this process for all plugins on your site that need updating, or refer to the section below if you have many plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update them all at the same time.
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Now that you know how to upgrade one WordPress plugin at a time, let’s show you how to upgrade several WordPress plugins simultaneously.
How To Update Several Plugins
To bulk-update WP plugins using the automatic updating feature, go to the “Plugins” area 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 its box …
In the Bulk Actions drop down menu at the top of the page, choose Update …
And then click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will automatically begin to update …
After your plugins have been updated, 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 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) …
All plugins have now been upgraded!
(When your plugins are up-to-date, notification icons disappear)
Now that you know how to update WP in the dashboard, let’s take a look at how to delete plugins from your site or blog.
How To Safely Remove WordPress Plugins
Occasionally, you may decide to remove WordPress plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This helps to conserve resource usage and also help to reduce causes of problems.
In this section, we show you how to remove unused plugins from your WordPress site.
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 reinstall your site.
To delete a plugin, go to your admin menu and select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins screen, 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 show an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, click on Deactivate before going any further …
Next, click on Delete …
If you would like to browse 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 …
A complete list of files associated with the plugin that you are about to remove will be listed on your screen …
If you are positively sure that you want to proceed and delete the selected plugin, then click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugin(s) will be removed 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 deleted.
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 checkbox 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 dropdown menu …
Click Apply …
Your selected plugins will be deactivated …
Once you have deactivated these plugins, click on the Inactive 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 remove by checking its box …
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 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 certain that you want to go ahead and delete all of the selected plugins …
All plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Useful Management Tools For WordPress Plugins
In addition to the methods shown above, you can use a range of third-party tools 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