In a separate article, we provide a detailed explanation of what plugins are about and how you can use these to add new features or functionality to your website or blog without editing code.
You can read this article here:
In this tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping WordPress plugins up-to-date, how to automatically update and uninstall plugins, and discover useful tools to help you better manage your plugins if you plan to run multiple WordPress sites or blogs.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Your 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 versions, and to improve existing features.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, there will typically be new new update notices for plugins when new versions of WordPress are released.
This is because most plugins for WordPress are created by third-party developers, so sometimes code or features in the newly-released WordPress version conflict with plugins that were built for a previous version. When this happens, problems 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 needed). All you need to do as a WordPress user, is just maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is very simple, quick 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 errors and conflicts.
The tutorial below explains how to automatically upgrade and delete WordPress plugins safely from the WordPress admin dashboard without requiring web coding or programming skills or knowledge.
Updating And Deleting WordPress Plugins – Tutorial
WordPress uses a few methods of letting you know when your plugins need updating.
For example, you can see ‘at a glance’ how many plugins need updating as soon as you log into your WordPress Dashboard by looking at the main “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 nine plugins should be brought up to date) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also lets you know which plugins need updating …
In addition to providing information about which plugins have updates available, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin developer pages and gives you the option to update your plugin with one-click …
Let’s start by showing you how to upgrade individual plugins.
Upgrading Single Plugins
Always make a full backup of your data and files before updating your blog or website.
In your WP admin menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” screen will display in your browser. The table of plugins can go down your screen for a while, depending on how many plugins you have added to your blog …
(WordPress Plugins Page)
Useful Info:
If you have too many plugins installed 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 (by default, all plugins display on the page), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
Your Plugins page will now be reduced in size with a pagination feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Plugin Search” feature …
WordPress displays plugin information in different backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (inactive vs. active and up-to-date vs. outdated) …
Plugins in need of upgrading have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin] available” …
Find the plugin that needs updating and click on the update now link …
WordPress has done away with the loading screen when updating plugins and streamlined the process, so that updating your plugins happens “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat this process for all plugins on your site that need updating, or see the section below if you have several plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update them all in bulk.
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Now that you know how to update WP plugins one at a time, let’s show you how to bulk-upgrade plugins.
Bulk-Upgrading Plugins
To bulk-upgrade WP plugins from your admin area, go to the “Plugins” area and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Click the checkbox in 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 drop down menu above your plugin list, choose Update …
And then click Apply …
Your selected plugins will automatically begin updating …
After all updates are done, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to the Plugins area, or go to another section of your dashboard …
Once your plugins are all up-to-date, the update reminders disappear (i.e. the “at-a-glance” indicators and “There is a new version of XYZ plugin available” notices no longer display) …
All plugins are now up-to-date!
(When your site or blog uses the latest version of all plugins, notification icons do not display)
Now that you know how to automatically upgrade plugins, let’s take a look at how to remove plugins safely from your WordPress site or blog.
Deleting WordPress Plugins
As part of good WordPress site management practices, it’s a good idea to delete plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This helps to conserve server resources and will help you avoid problems.
In this section, you will learn how to deactivate and delete unused plugins from your WordPress blog or 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 main menu and select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins page, find the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is inactive.
Hint: Inactive plugins are listed in a different colored background than active plugins and display an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, click on Deactivate before proceeding with your plugin deletion …
Click on Delete …
If you would like to have a look at all the files that will be deleted before going ahead, 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 associated with the plugin that you are about to remove will be listed on your screen …
If you are absolutely certain about going ahead and deleting the plugin files, just click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugins and related files will be removed from your WordPress installation …
How To Delete Several WP Plugins Simultaneously
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 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, select Deactivate from the Bulk Actions drop-down menu …
Click Apply …
Your 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 …
Tick the checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to delete by checking its box …
Once you have selected all the plugins that you want deleted, select Delete from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click Apply …
A list of all selected plugins will be displayed 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 go ahead and remove all of the selected plugins …
Your plugins will be deleted …
WordPress Management Tools For WordPress Plugins
As well as the methods shown above, you can use other WordPress plugins that let 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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