How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins

Learn how to update and delete WordPress plugins inside your WordPress dashboard…

Updating And Deleting Plugins Safely From Your DashboardIn another article, we provide an overview of what WP plugins are about and how you can use plugins to easily extend your site’s functionality.

You can read this article here:

In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date, how to automatically upgrade and remove your WordPress plugins, and useful plugin management tips.

How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins

Why Some Of Your Plugins Need To Be Upgraded

New WordPress versions are regularly released (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in previous versions, as well as to improve existing features or introduce new ones.

Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, you can expect to see at least some new new update notices for plugins every.

This is because most plugins for WordPress are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes code or features in the new WordPress version conflict with plugins that were built for a previous version. Whenever this happens, problems can sometimes occur.

Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are very proactive when it comes to making sure that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if needed). All you need to do on your end, is keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is very easy and simple to do.

Useful Information

Keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date and deleting old plugins you no longer use is part of good WordPress management and helps to avoid any potential conflicts or errors.

The step-by-step tutorial below explains how to automatically upgrade and delete plugins safely in WordPress without web programming knowledge needed.

How To Update And Delete Plugins In WordPress – Step-By-Step Tutorial

WordPress has a few methods to inform you when plugins need updating.

For example, you can tell immediately how many plugins need to be updated as soon as you log into your Admin area by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.

In the example below, 9 plugins are out of date and need updating …

How To Update And Delete Plugins Safely

You can also tell how many plugins need to be updated from your WordPress Admin Toolbar (the example below shows how many plugins should be updated) …

How To Upgrade And Delete Plugins In WordPress

The Plugins screen (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also lets you know which plugins need to be updated …

How To Upgrade And Delete Plugins From Your Dashboard

As well as providing information about which plugins have available updates, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin developer pages and gives you the option to update the plugin instantly …

How To Automatically Upgrade And Delete Plugins Safely In WordPress

Let’s start by learning how to upgrade WordPress plugins individually.

How To Update Individual A Plugin

Warning

Always make a complete backup of your site files and database before upgrading your blog or website.

From your dashboard menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins

How To Update And Delete Plugins Safely Inside Your WordPress Admin Dashboard

You will be taken to the “Plugins” screen. This list of plugins can be quite lengthy depending on how many plugins you have installed in your blog …

How To Upgrade And Delete Plugins From The WordPress Dashboard

(Plugins Section)

Tip

Notes:

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 up on the screen by default, i.e. “999”), then click the ‘Apply’ button …

Updating And Deleting Plugins Safely From Your Dashboard

Your Plugins page will now be reduced in size with a page scrolling feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Search Plugins” function …

Updating And Deleting Plugins Safely Inside The WP Dashboard

WordPress displays information about plugins in different color backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (active vs. inactive and up-to-date vs. out-of-date) …

How To Update And Delete Plugins Safely In WordPress

Plugins that need updating show the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Insert Plugin Name] available”

Updating And Deleting Plugins In WordPress

Locate the plugin that you want to update and click on the update now link …

How To Automatically Upgrade And Delete Plugins Safely

WordPress has done away with the loading screen when updating plugins and streamlined the plugin updating process, so that updating your plugins happens “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins area …

Updating And Deleting Plugins

Repeat this process for all plugins on your site that need updating, or see the section below if you have a number of plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update all plugins at the same time.

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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 update multiple WordPress plugins simultaneously.

How To Upgrade Multiple WP Plugins

To update multiple WordPress plugins in a single operation using the automatic update feature, go to the “Plugins” screen and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …

How To Automatically Upgrade And Delete Plugins Safely From Your Dashboard

Click on the check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to update by checking its box …

How To Upgrade And Delete Plugins From Your Dashboard

In the Bulk Actions drop down menu at the top of the page, choose Update

How To Automatically Upgrade And Delete Plugins Inside Your WordPress Admin Dashboard

And then click Apply

Upgrading And Deleting Plugins Safely From The Dashboard

The plugins you have selected will begin the update process …

How To Automatically Update And Delete Plugins Safely

Once your plugins have all been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to your Plugins screen, or choose another option from the WP dashboard menu …

How To Automatically Update And Delete Plugins

Once all plugins are up-to-date, the update reminders will disappear (i.e. the “at-a-glance” indicators and “There is a new version of XYZ plugin available” notices no longer display) …

How To Update And Delete Plugins In WordPress

You have updated all plugins on your site to their latest version!

How To Upgrade And Delete WordPress Plugins In The Dashboard

(When your site or blog uses the latest version of all plugins, the notification icons disappear)

Now that you know how to update your plugins, let’s show you how to remove plugins safely from your WordPress blog or website.

Deleting Plugins

It’s a good idea to uninstall plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This helps to decrease server resources and help you avoid potential problems.

In this section, you will learn how to remove unused plugins from your site.

Warning

Always create 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 reinstall your site.

To remove a plugin, go to your dashboard menu and choose Plugins > Installed Plugins

How To Automatically Update And Delete Plugins In Your Dashboard

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 …

Updating And Deleting Plugins In The WP Admin Dashboard

If the plugin is active, click on Deactivate before proceeding …

How To Automatically Update And Delete WordPress Plugins

Once you have deactivated the plugin, click Delete

Updating And Deleting Plugins In WordPress

If you need to review a list of all the files that will be deleted before proceeding, then click on the “Click to view entire list of files which will be deleted” link in the “Delete Plugin” screen …

How To Automatically Update And Delete Plugins Safely

All files associated with the plugin selected for removalwill display on your screen …

Updating And Deleting Plugins In WordPress

If you are certain about going ahead and deleting the selected plugin files, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …

How To Automatically Upgrade And Delete Plugins

Your plugins and related files will be deleted …

How To Upgrade And Delete Plugins Safely In The WordPress Dashboard

Bulk-Deleting Plugins

You can delete all inactive plugins at once, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be cleared.

Important

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 check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …

Upgrading And Deleting Plugins From The Dashboard

Next, choose Deactivate from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …

Updating And Deleting Plugins Safely In WordPress

Click Apply

Updating And Deleting Plugins Inside Your WordPress Dashboard

All selected plugins will be deactivated …

How To Automatically Update And Delete Plugins In WordPress

To delete all or some of the inactive plugins on your site, go to the “Plugins” area and click on the Inactive link on the main menu …

How To Upgrade And Delete Plugins

Select all of the plugins you want to delete by either placing a tick next to their checkbox, or click on the checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select and delete all inactive plugins …

How To Automatically Upgrade And Delete Plugins

Once you have selected all of the plugins that you want deleted, specify Delete from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …

How To Upgrade And Delete Plugins In WordPress

Click Apply

How To Upgrade And Delete Plugins

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 proceed to the next step and remove all of the plugins listed …

Upgrading And Deleting Plugins Safely In The Dashboard

All plugins will be deleted …

Updating And Deleting WordPress Plugins Safely

Managing WP Plugins – Tools

In addition to the methods shown above, you can use a range of tools to manage your plugins.

Health Check & troubleshooting

Health Check & Troubleshooting WordPress plugin
Health Check identifies common problems and helps you troubleshoot plugin and theme conflicts.

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

WPMU DEV's The Hub - Unlimited WordPress Site Management
WPMU DEV’s The Hub – Unlimited WordPress Site Management

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.

WPMU DEV: The Hub - My Sites - Updates menu

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.

WPMU DEV: The Hub - My Sites - Updates menu

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.

The Hub - Update notifications.
This feature can help you save a lot of time updating multiple WordPress sites, especially when WordPress releases a new version of its software.

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