In a previous blog post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use these to easily expand your website’s capabilities.

You can read this article here:

• Adding New Features And Functionality To Your Web Site With WP Plugins

In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn why WordPress plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to automatically update and remove your WordPress plugins, and discover some great tools to help you better manage your plugins.

How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins

Why Plugins Need To Be Frequently Upgraded

The WordPress software is constantly updated (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in older software versions, as well as to improve existing features or introduce new functionality to users.

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.

The reason for this, is because most WordPress plugins are created by external developers, so sometimes code or features in the new WordPress version conflict with plugins that were developed and tested with a previous version. Whenever this happens, conflicts can sometimes occur.

Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are very proactive when it comes to ensuring 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 just keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is very 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 potential problems and errors.

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

Updating And Deleting Plugins Safely – Step-By-Step Tutorial

WordPress uses several methods of letting you know when your plugins need to be updated.

For example, you can see how many plugins need updating inside your Administration area simply by looking at the “Plugins” menu.

In the example below, you can see that 9 plugins are out of date and need to be updated …

You can also check how many plugins need to be updated from your WP Toolbar (as shown below, a number of plugins should be brought up to date) …

The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you what plugins need to be updated …

In addition to providing information about which plugins have available updates, the Plugins screen provides links to the plugin developer pages and gives you the option to update the plugin instantly …

Let’s start by showing you how to upgrade individual WP plugins.

How To Update Individual Plugins

Always make a complete backup of your data and files before making any upgrades to your blog or website.

In your dashboard menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …

You will be taken to the “Plugins” area. This table of plugins can be quite lengthy depending on the number of plugins you have installed in your site …

(Plugins Page)

Additional Info:

If you have too many plugins and would like to reduce the number of plugins displayed on the screen, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins screen and type in a smaller number of items per page (by default, all plugins display on the screen), then click the ‘Apply’ button …

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

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

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 has done away with the loading screen when updating plugins and streamlined the process, so that the process of updating your plugins happens with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins area …

Repeat this process for any other plugins on your site that need to be updated, or see the section below if you have several 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 WordPress plugins individually, the next step is to learn how to bulk-update WP plugins.

How To Bulk-Update Plugins

To bulk-upgrade WP plugins directly inside your dashboard, go to the “Plugins” screen and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …

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

In the Bulk Actions drop-down menu above the table of plugins, choose Update …

And then click Apply …

The plugins you have selected will begin the update process …

After your plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to your Plugins section, or choose another section of your dashboard …

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

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

(When your plugins are up-to-date, update notices no longer display)

Now that you know how to upgrade plugins, it’s time to learn how to remove plugins safely from your blog or website.

Deleting Plugins

At times, you may want to delete plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This helps to decrease server resources and also help you avoid potential problems.

In this section, you will learn how to deactivate and delete unused plugins from your blog or 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 reinstall your site.

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

In the Plugins area, find the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is inactive.

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 proceeding with your plugin deletion …

Next, click on Delete …

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

A complete list of files associated with the plugin that you are about to delete will display on your screen …

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

The selected plugin(s) will be deleted …

Bulk-Deleting WP Plugins

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

Next, specify Deactivate from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …

Click the Apply button …

All selected plugins will be deactivated …

To delete all or some of the inactive plugins on your site, go to the “Plugins” section 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 check box, or click on the checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select and delete all inactive plugins …

Once you have ticked all the check boxes next to the plugins that you want to delete, select Delete from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …

Click Apply …

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 sure that you would like to proceed to the next step and delete all of the selected plugins …

The selected plugins will be deleted …

Managing WordPress Plugins – WordPress Tools

In addition to the methods shown above, you can install WordPress plugins to 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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