In a previous post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use these to add new features to your website with no technical knowledge required.
To view the article, go here:
In this tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping your plugins up-to-date, how to update and uninstall your WordPress plugins, and some tools to help you better manage your plugins.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Some Of Your WordPress Plugins Need Upgrading
WordPress frequently updates its software (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in previous software releases, and to improve existing features.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, you can expect to see at least some new new update notices for plugins each time a new version of WordPress is made available.
This is because most plugins for WordPress are created by third-party developers, so sometimes code in the new WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were developed for a previous version. When this happens, there is a potential for problems to sometimes occur.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are fairly 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 have to do on your end, is maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is very easy to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date and removing old plugins you no longer need is part of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid potential errors and conflicts.
The step-by-step tutorial below explains how to update and delete plugins safely from the WordPress admin dashboard without web coding knowledge or skills necessary.
Upgrading And Deleting Plugins Safely Inside Your Dashboard – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress has several methods of letting you know when plugins on your site need to be updated.
For example, you can instantly see how many plugins need to be updated from your Admin area just by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, you can see that nine plugins have older versions that need to be updated …
You can also check how many plugins need to be updated from your WordPress Administration Toolbar (as shown below, a number of plugins should be brought up to date) …
The Plugins screen (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also lets you know which plugins need updating …
As well as providing information about plugins that have available updates, the Plugins screen provides links to the plugin download sites and gives you the option to update your plugin instantly …
Let’s start by showing you how to upgrade one WordPress plugin at a time.
Update Individual WordPress Plugins
Always make a full backup of your data and files before upgrading your website or blog.
From your dashboard menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” page will display in your browser. The page can be quite long depending on how many plugins you have added to your blog …
(Plugins Section)
Additional Information:
If you have too many plugins and would like to make this section more manageable, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins page and type in a smaller number of items per page (by default, all plugins display on the screen), then click Apply …
Your Plugins page 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” field …
You will see plugin information in different color backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (active vs. inactive and outdated vs up-to-date) …
Plugins that need upgrading display the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin Name] 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 the process of updating your plugins happens with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat this process for any other plugins on your site that need to be updated, or see the section below if you have many plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update them all in bulk.
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Now that you know how to upgrade individual WordPress plugins, it’s time to learn how to upgrade a bunch of plugins simultaneously.
Bulk-Updating WordPress Plugins
To bulk-update WordPress plugins simultaneously using the automatic upgrade feature, go to the “Plugins” page 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 dropdown menu at the top of the page, choose Update …
Click Apply …
Your selected plugins will all be updated at once …
After the update process has been completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to your Plugins section, or select another option from the WordPress dashboard 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 plugins on your site are all up-to-date, notification icons disappear)
Now that you know how to update your plugins, it’s time to learn how to uninstall plugins safely from your site or blog.
Deleting Plugins
At times, you may decide to remove plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This conserves resources on your server and eliminate problems.
In this section, we show you how to safely uninstall unused plugins from your 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, locate the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is inactive.
Hint: Inactive plugins appear 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 proceeding …
Click on Delete …
If you would like to review a list of all the files that will be deleted before proceeding any further, then click on the “Click to view entire list of files which will be deleted” link in the “Delete Plugin” screen …
The entire list of files associated with the plugin selected for deletionwill display on your screen …
If you are absolutely certain about going ahead and deleting the plugin, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugin(s) will be removed from your server …
Bulk-Deleting WordPress Plugins
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins on your site, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be deleted.
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 check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …
Once you have done this, select Deactivate from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click the Apply button …
Your selected plugins will be deactivated …
Once you have deactivated your plugins, click on the Inactive link on the menu at the top of the page …
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 check boxes next to the plugins that you want deleted, select Delete from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click Apply …
A list of all selected plugins will display 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 would like to proceed to the next step and delete all of the plugins listed …
All selected plugins will be deleted …
WordPress Management Tools For Plugins
In addition to the methods shown above, you can use 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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"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum