In another blog post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use these to increase your site’s functionality.

You can read the article here:

• Adding New Functionality To Your Web Site With Plugins

In this tutorial you will learn why WordPress plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to safely upgrade and uninstall plugins, and discover useful plugin management tips.

How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins

Why WordPress Plugins Need Updating

New WordPress versions are constantly being released (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in earlier software releases, 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, there will typically be new new update notices for WordPress plugins whenever new WordPress versions are announced.

This is because most WordPress plugins are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes code in the newly-released WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were created and tested to work with a previous version. Whenever 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 updating is required). All you have to do as a website owner, is keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is really easy and simple 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 or problems.

The step-by-step tutorial below explains how to automatically update and delete plugins safely in WordPress without requiring web coding knowledge.

How To Automatically Update And Delete Plugins In The Dashboard – Step-By-Step Tutorial

WordPress utilizes a number of different methods to let you know when your plugins need to be updated.

For example, you can see ‘at a glance’ how many plugins are out-of-date inside your Administration area by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.

In the screenshot below, nine WP plugins need to be updated …

You can also view how many plugins need updating from your WordPress Administration Toolbar (as shown below, several plugins should be brought up to date) …

The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also provides information about plugins that need updating …

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 your plugin instantly …

Let’s start by showing you how to update one plugin at a time.

Update Individual Plugins

We recommend performing a backup of your site files and database before updating your website or blog.

From your admin menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …

The “Plugins” area will display in your browser. The table of plugins can go down your screen for a while, depending on how many plugins you have installed in your site …

(Plugins Screen)

Useful Tips:

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 enter a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show up on the screen by default), then click the ‘Apply’ button …

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 “Plugin Search” field …

You will see plugin information in different backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (inactive vs. active and up-to-date vs. out-of-date) …

Plugins in need of upgrading have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Insert Plugin Name] available” …

Select the plugin that needs to be updated and click on the update now link …

WordPress provides smooth and fast plugin updates, so that the process of updating your plugins takes place with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins area …

Repeat the above process for all plugins on your site that need updating, or refer to the section below if you have many plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update all plugins in one simple operation.

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Now that you know how to upgrade plugins individually, it’s time to learn how to bulk-update WP plugins.

How To Bulk-Update WP Plugins

To bulk-upgrade WP plugins directly inside your dashboard, go to the “Plugins” page 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 each plugin you want to update by checking its box …

In the Bulk Actions dropdown menu above the list of plugins, select Update …

Click Apply …

The plugins you have selected will update all at once …

Once all plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to the Plugins screen, or choose a different section of your dashboard …

Once your plugins are all up-to-date, any plugin alerts disappear (i.e. the “at-a-glance” indicators and “There is a new version of XYZ plugin available” notices no longer display on your screen, toolbar and menus) …

You have updated all plugins on your site!

(When your site or blog uses the latest version of all plugins, the notification icons do not display)

Now that you know how to update WP plugins, let’s show you how to delete plugins safely from your WordPress site.

Deleting Plugins

Occasionally, you may choose to remove WP plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This can help decrease server resources and help to eliminate problems.

In this section, we show you how to uninstall unused plugins from your WordPress site.

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 delete a plugin, go to your main menu and choose Plugins > Installed Plugins …

In the Plugins page, find the plugin you want to delete 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, then click on Deactivate before continuing with your plugin deletion …

Next, click on Delete …

If you need to have a look at 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” screen …

The entire list of files belonging to the plugin that you are about to delete will display on your screen …

If you are positively sure that you want to proceed and delete these plugin files, just click on the Yes, Delete these files button …

The selected plugin(s) will be deleted …

Deleting Several WP Plugins In Bulk

You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins on your site, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be cleared.

Note: To delete any plugins that are presently active, your will 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) …

Once you have done this, specify Deactivate from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …

Click the Apply button …

The selected plugins will be deactivated …

To delete all or some of the inactive plugins, 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 checkbox, or click on the check box next to the Plugin column header to select and delete all inactive plugins …

Once you have selected all the plugins that you want deleted, specify 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 absolutely certain that you would like to go ahead and delete all of the plugins listed …

All plugins will be deleted …

Useful WordPress Tools For Managing Plugins

In addition to the methods shown above, you can use Free and Premium 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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