In a separate post, we provide a detailed explanation of what plugins are all about and how you can use these to easily expand your site’s functionality.
To view this 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 update and remove your WordPress plugins, and discover useful plugin management tips.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Some Of Your WordPress Plugins Need Updating
New versions of WordPress are regularly released (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.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, you can expect to see at least some new updates for WordPress plugins every.
This is because most plugins for WordPress are created by external developers, so sometimes code in the new WordPress version conflict with plugins that were built for 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 fairly proactive when it comes to ensuring that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if updating 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 to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins regularly updated and removing old plugins you no longer use is part of good WordPress management and helps to avoid any conflicts or errors.
The WordPress step-by-step tutorial below explains how to update and delete plugins safely in WordPress with no coding knowledge necessary.
How To Automatically Update And Delete Plugins Safely – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress employs several ways to alert users when plugins need updating.
For example, you can immediately see how many plugins are out-of-date as soon as you log into your Admin area simply by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, you can see that 9 WP plugins need updating …
You can also check how many plugins need updating from your WP Admin Toolbar (as shown below, nine plugins should be updated) …
The Plugins page (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you what plugins need to be updated …
As well as providing information about plugins that have available updates, the Plugins page provides links to the plugin download sites and gives you the option to update the plugins with one-click …
Let’s start by learning how to update individual plugins.
Upgrading WordPress Plugins Individually
Always make a full backup of your data and files before upgrading your website or blog.
From your main menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” area will display in your browser. This page can be quite lengthy depending on the number of plugins you have installed on your site …
(WordPress Plugins Page)
Useful Info:
If you have too many plugins installed and would like to make this section more manageable, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins area and type in a smaller number of items per page (by default, all plugins display on the screen), 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 “Plugin Search” function …
WordPress displays plugin information in different color backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (active vs. inactive and up-to-date vs. out-of-date) …
Plugins that need upgrading display the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin] available” …
Find the plugin that you want to update and click on the update now link …
WordPress has done away with the loading screen when updating plugins and streamlined the plugin update process, so that updating your plugins takes place with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat the above 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 all plugins in bulk.
***
Now that you know how to update individual WP plugins, let’s show you how to bulk-update WP plugins.
Bulk-Upgrading WP Plugins
To upgrade multiple WP plugins in a single operation from your admin area, go to the “Plugins” page 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 drop down menu above the table of plugins, choose Update …
Click Apply …
Your selected plugins will begin to update automatically …
Once your plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to the Plugins area, or visit another section of your dashboard …
Once all plugins are 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 are now up-to-date!
(When plugins on your site are up-to-date, update messages no longer appear)
Now that you know how to automatically upgrade your in your admin dashboard, let’s take a look at how to remove plugins from your blog or website.
Deleting Plugins
At times, you may choose to delete WP plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This decreases server resources and helps to eliminate causes of problems.
In this section, you will learn how to safely remove unused plugins from your blog or 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 remove a plugin, go to your main menu and choose Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins area, find the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is inactive.
Hint: Inactive plugins have 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 need to review a list of all the files that will be deleted before going ahead with the next step, then click on the “Click to view entire list of files which will be deleted” link in the “Delete Plugin” section …
The entire list of files belonging to the plugin selected for deletionwill display on your screen …
If you are certain about going ahead and deleting the plugin, then click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugins and related files will be deleted from your WordPress installation …
Deleting Multiple WordPress Plugins Simultaneously
You can delete all inactive plugins at once, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be uninstalled.
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 checkbox, 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 pull-down menu …
Click Apply …
The selected plugins will be deactivated …
To delete all or some of the inactive plugins, go to the “Plugins” section and click on the Inactive link in the Plugins menu …
Tick the check box 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 ticked all the check boxes next to the plugins that you want deleted, choose 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 go ahead and delete all of the plugins listed …
Your plugins will be deleted …
Management Tools For Plugins
As well as the methods shown above, you can install other WordPress plugins 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.
***
"I am beyond impressed with what you have put together. I can tell that you put a ton of hard work into building what you have. You have the absolute best content on WordPress I have ever seen!" - Robert T. Jillie