In a separate article, we provide a detailed explanation of what plugins are all about and how you can use these to easily extend your website’s functionality.
To read this article, go here:
In this tutorial you will learn why WordPress plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to update and delete plugins from your site, and discover some great plugin management tools if you run multiple WordPress sites.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Some Of Your 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 found in earlier software versions, as well as to improve existing features or introduce new ones.
Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, there will typically be new new update notifications for WordPress plugins each time a new WordPress version is announced.
The reason for this, is because most WordPress plugins are created by third-party developers, so sometimes the code in the newly-released WordPress version conflicts 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 on your end, is simply keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is very easy to do.
Keeping your plugins regularly updated and removing old plugins you no longer need is part of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid any potential problems or errors.
The step-by-step tutorial below explains how to automatically update and delete plugins safely in the dashboard without web coding knowledge or skills necessary.
Upgrading And Deleting Plugins Safely From The WordPress Dashboard – Tutorial
WordPress employs a number of different methods to let you know when plugins on your site need to be updated.
For example, you can see ‘at a glance’ how many plugins need updating as soon as you log into your WP Dashboard by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
In the screenshot below, 9 WordPress plugins have older versions that need to be updated …
You can also tell how many plugins need to be updated from your WordPress Admin Toolbar (as shown below, several plugins should be updated) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also provides information about plugins that need updating …
As well as providing information about which plugins have updates available, the Plugins screen provides links to the plugin developer pages and gives you the option to update your plugins individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by showing you how to update WordPress plugins one at a time.
How To Upgrade Single Plugins
We strongly recommend making a complete backup of your site files and database before upgrading your website or blog.
From your WP admin menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” area will display in your browser. The list of plugins can be quite lengthy depending on how many plugins you have added to your blog …
(Plugins Section)
Additional 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 screen and type in a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show on the screen by default), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
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 “Plugin Search” box …
You will see plugin information in different backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (active vs. inactive and out-of-date vs up-to-date) …
Plugins in need of upgrading have a distinctive 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 takes place “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat the above process for any other 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 update one plugin at a time, the next step is to learn how to bulk-update WP plugins.
Bulk-Upgrading WP Plugins
To bulk-upgrade WP plugins using the automatic upgrading feature, go to the “Plugins” section and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Click the check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to upgrade by checking its box …
In the Bulk Actions drop-down menu above your plugin table, select Update …
And then click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will begin the update process …
Once all plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to your Plugins section, or choose a different 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” messages no longer display on your screen, toolbar and menus) …
All plugins have now been upgraded!
(When your plugins are up-to-date, update icons do not display)
Now that you know how to update plugins, let’s show you how to safely remove plugins safely from your WordPress site.
How To Remove Plugins
As part of smart WordPress management practice, it’s a good idea to delete plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This conserves resource usage and also help to eliminate problems.
In this section, we show you how to delete unused plugins from your WordPress site.
Always create 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 WP admin menu and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins section, find the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is deactivated.
Hint: Inactive plugins have a different colored background than active plugins and display an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, click on Deactivate before proceeding …
Click Delete …
If you need to review a list of 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” screen …
The entire list of files associated with the plugin selected for deletionwill display on your screen …
If you are positively certain about going ahead and deleting the plugin, just click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugins and related files will be deleted from your WordPress installation …
How To Delete Multiple WordPress Plugins In Bulk
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be removed.
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, select Deactivate from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click Apply …
The 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 …
Click the checkbox in 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 selected all the plugins that you want to delete, specify Delete from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click Apply …
A list of all selected plugins will display 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 want to go ahead and delete all of the selected plugins …
All selected plugins will be deleted …
WordPress Tools For Managing WordPress Plugins
In addition to the methods shown above, you can use 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.
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