In another article, we provide an overview of what plugins are about and how you can use plugins to enhance your site’s functionality.
To read this article, go here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping all plugins up-to-date, how to automatically upgrade and remove plugins from your site, and practical plugin management tips if you run multiple WordPress sites or blogs.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Some Of Your Plugins Need Upgrading
WordPress frequently updates its software (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in earlier versions, as well as to improve existing features or introduce new functionality to WordPress users.
Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, you can expect to see at least some new updates for WordPress plugins when new versions of WordPress are released.
The reason for this, is because most WordPress plugins are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes the code in the new WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were built for a previous version. Whenever this happens, problems can sometimes develop.
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 required). All you need to do as a website owner, is just keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is very easy to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins regularly updated and removing old plugins you no longer need is part of good WordPress management and helps to avoid errors and conflicts.
The WordPress tutorial below explains how to upgrade and delete plugins safely without requiring coding skills or knowledge.
How To Automatically Upgrade And Delete Plugins In WordPress – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress provides a few ways to inform you when plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can immediately see how many plugins need to be updated inside your WordPress Dashboard just by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
In the screenshot below, you can see that nine WordPress plugins have older versions that need updating …
You can also see how many plugins need updating from your WordPress Notification Toolbar (the example below shows that several plugins should be brought up to date) …
The Plugins page (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you what plugins need updating …
As well as providing information about which plugins have updates available, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin download pages and gives you the option to update your plugin individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by learning how to upgrade WordPress plugins individually.
Updating Single WordPress Plugins
We strongly recommend making a full backup of your site files and database before upgrading your website or blog.
From your admin menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” page will display in your browser. This list of plugins can be quite lengthy depending on how many plugins you have added to your blog …
(WordPress Plugins Page)
Tips:
If you have too many plugins and would like to reduce the number of plugins showing on your page, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins screen and type in a smaller number of items per page (by default, all plugins display on the screen), then click Apply …
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 “Search” function …
WordPress displays information about plugins in different color backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (active vs. inactive and outdated vs up-to-date) …
Plugins that require updating have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin Name] available” …
Locate 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 area …
Repeat this process for all plugins on your site that need to be updated, or refer to the section below if you have several 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 one WordPress plugin at a time, the next step is to learn how to bulk-update plugins.
Bulk-Updating WP Plugins
To bulk-update WP plugins directly inside your dashboard, go to the “Plugins” screen and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Tick the checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to update by checking its box …
In the Bulk Actions pull-down menu above the plugin list, choose Update …
Click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will begin updating …
After all plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to the Plugins section, or choose another option from the sidebar 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) …
All plugins are now up-to-date!
(When your site uses the latest version of all plugins, notification icons disappear)
Now that you know how to automatically upgrade your plugins, let’s show you how to safely delete plugins safely from your site.
Deleting Plugins
As part of smart WordPress blog management practices, it’s a good idea to remove plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This conserves resource usage and also help you avoid problems.
In this section, you will learn how to safely uninstall unused plugins from your WordPress site or blog.
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 admin menu and select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins page, locate the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is deactivated.
Hint: Inactive plugins use a different background color than active plugins and display an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, then click on Deactivate before proceeding with your plugin deletion …
Once you have deactivated the plugin, click Delete …
If you need to review a list of all the files that will be deleted before going ahead, then click on the “Click to view entire list of files which will be deleted” link in the “Delete Plugin” screen …
All files belonging to the plugin that you are about to remove will be listed on your screen …
If you are positively certain about going ahead and deleting the plugin files, just click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugins and related files will be deleted …
Bulk-Deleting WordPress Plugins
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 currently 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 check box, or selecting the checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …
Next, choose Deactivate from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click Apply …
Your selected plugins will be deactivated …
To delete all or some of the inactive plugins on your site, go to the “Plugins” page and click on the Inactive link in the Plugins menu …
Select all of the plugins you want to delete by either placing a tick next to their check box, or click on the checkbox 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, select Delete from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click the Apply button …
A list of all selected plugins will be displayed 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 sure that you would like to go ahead and delete all of the selected plugins …
Your 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 install WordPress plugins that help 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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