In a separate article, we provide a detailed explanation of what plugins are about and how you can use plugins to add new features to your blog with no coding skills required.
You can view the article here:
In this tutorial you will learn why plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to easily update and delete plugins, and useful plugin management tips.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Many Plugins Need Updating
The WordPress software is constantly updated (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in previous software versions, as well as to improve existing features.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, there will typically be new updates for plugins whenever new WordPress versions are released.
This is because most plugins for WordPress are created by external developers, so sometimes features in the newly-released WordPress version conflict with plugins that were developed and tested with 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 required). All you have to do on your end, is just keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is really simple and easy to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date and deleting old plugins you no longer need is part of good WordPress management and helps to avoid any conflicts and errors.
The step-by-step tutorial below explains how to upgrade and delete plugins with no coding skills or knowledge required.
Updating And Deleting Plugins Safely – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress has a number of different ways of letting users know when plugins need updating.
For example, you can tell immediately how many plugins need to be updated as soon as you log into your Site’s Dashboard simply by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, 9 WordPress plugins have older versions that need to be updated …
You can also see how many plugins need updating from your WP Toolbar (the example below shows how many plugins should be updated) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you what plugins need to be updated …
In addition to providing information about plugins that have available updates, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin download sites and gives you the option to update the plugins instantly …
Let’s start by learning how to upgrade one WordPress plugin at a time.
How To Update Individual Plugins
Always make a backup of your data and files before making any upgrades to your website or blog.
In your dashboard menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” page. The page can be quite long depending on the number of plugins you have installed in your site …
(WordPress Plugins Section)
Notes:
If you have too many plugins and would like to reduce the number of plugins displayed on your page, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins area and type in a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show on the screen by default), then click Apply …
Your Plugins area 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 Plugins” feature …
You will see plugin information in different backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (inactive vs. active and outdated vs up-to-date) …
Plugins that need upgrading have a distinctive 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 provides smooth and simpler plugin updates, so that the process of updating your plugins takes place “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat this 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 update them all at the same time.
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Now that you know how to upgrade WordPress plugins one at a time, the next step is to learn how to update many WP plugins simultaneously.
How To Upgrade Various WordPress Plugins
To bulk-upgrade plugins simultaneously from your admin area, 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 in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to update by checking their individual boxes …
In the Bulk Actions drop-down menu above the plugin list, choose Update …
And then click Apply …
Your selected plugins will all be updated at once …
Once all upgrades are finished, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to the Plugins screen, or select a different section of your dashboard …
Once all plugins are 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) …
All plugins have now been updated to their latest versions!
(When plugins on your site are all up-to-date, notification icons no longer show)
Now that you know how to automatically upgrade in your admin dashboard, let’s take a look at how to safely uninstall plugins from your WordPress site.
How To Delete WordPress Plugins
As part of good blog management, it’s a good idea to delete plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This can help to reduce server resources and also help to minimize causes of problems.
In this section, we show you how to safely delete unused plugins from your site.
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 admin menu and select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins page, find the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is deactivated.
Hint: Inactive plugins use 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 going any further …
Click on Delete …
If you want 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” section …
A complete list of files associated with the plugin that you are about to remove will be listed on your screen …
If you are absolutely sure about going ahead and deleting the plugin, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugins and related files will be deleted …
Bulk-Deleting WordPress Plugins
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins, 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 check box, or selecting the check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …
Next, select 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” screen and click on the Inactive link in the Plugins menu …
Click the check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to remove by checking their individual boxes …
Once you have ticked all the check boxes next to the plugins that you want to delete, select Delete from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click Apply …
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 remove all of the plugins listed …
Your plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
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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