In another blog post, we provide an overview of what plugins are all about and how you can use plugins to easily add new features or functionality to your website without editing code.
To view this article, go here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn why WordPress plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to easily update and delete plugins, and discover useful plugin management tools.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Your WordPress Plugins Need Regular Upgrading
WordPress constantly updates its software (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in previous versions, and to improve existing features.
Depending on how many plugins you have installed 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 WordPress plugins are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes code or features in the newly-released WordPress version conflict with plugins that were developed for a previous version. Whenever this happens, there is a potential for issues to sometimes develop.
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 keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is very quick, simple and easy to do.
Keeping your plugins up-to-date and removing old plugins you no longer need is an essential aspect of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid any potential errors or conflicts.
The WordPress step-by-step tutorial below explains how to automatically upgrade and delete plugins without editing web code.
Upgrading And Deleting Plugins Inside Your Dashboard – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress uses a few methods of letting users know when plugins on their site need to be updated.
For example, you can immediately see how many plugins are out-of-date inside your WP Dashboard simply by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, nine plugins need to be updated …
You can also see how many plugins need updating from your WordPress Toolbar (the example below shows that several plugins need updating) …
The Plugins page (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also lets you know which plugins need to be updated …
As well as providing information about which plugins have available updates, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin developer sites and gives you the option to update the plugin instantly …
Let’s start by learning how to upgrade individual plugins.
Update Individual Plugins
We recommend making a complete backup of your website before updating your website.
From your admin menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” page will display in your browser. The list of plugins can go down your screen for some length, depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site …
(The WordPress 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 area 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” field …
WordPress displays information about plugins in different color backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (inactive vs. active and up-to-date vs. outdated) …
Plugins that require updating have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Insert Plugin Name] available” …
Find the plugin that needs to be updated and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides simpler plugin updating, so that the process of updating your plugins takes place with just “one click” 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 many plugins that are out-of-date and would like to upgrade them all at once.
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Now that you know how to upgrade one plugin at a time, let’s show you how to update multiple WordPress plugins simultaneously.
Bulk-Updating Plugins
To bulk-upgrade WP plugins simultaneously using the automatic update feature, go to the “Plugins” area and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Tick 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 its box …
In the Bulk Actions dropdown menu above the list of plugins, choose Update …
And then click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will automatically begin to update …
After your plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to your Plugins section, or select another option from the main menu …
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” messages 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, update notices disappear)
Now that you know how to automatically update in the dashboard, let’s show you how to safely uninstall plugins from your site.
How To Safely Delete WordPress Plugins
It’s a good idea to delete plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This conserves server resources and also eliminate potential problems.
In this section, we show you how to deactivate and delete unused plugins from your 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 dashboard menu and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins screen, find the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is deactivated.
Hint: Inactive plugins have a different background color than active plugins and display an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, then click on Deactivate before continuing …
Once you have deactivated the plugin, click Delete …
If you want to review a list of 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” section …
A complete list of files associated with the plugin selected for deletionwill display on your screen …
If you are sure about going ahead and deleting these plugin files, just click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugins and related files will be deleted …
How To Safely Delete Multiple WP Plugins At Once
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be deleted.
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 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, choose Deactivate from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click the Apply button …
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 …
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 …
Once you have ticked all the checkboxes next to the plugins that you want deleted, select Delete from the Bulk Actions drop-down menu …
Click the Apply button …
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 go ahead and remove all of the selected plugins …
All selected plugins will be deleted …
Managing WordPress Plugins – Useful WordPress Tools
In addition to the methods shown above, you can use a range of 3rd-party tools to 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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