In another blog post, we provide a detailed explanation of what plugins are about and how you can use these to add new features to your website or blog without touching code.
You can view this article here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping your plugins up-to-date, how to easily upgrade and remove your WordPress plugins, and useful tips to help you better manage your plugins.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Some Plugins Need Frequent Updating
WordPress constantly updates its software (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in older software releases, and to improve existing features.
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.
The reason for this, is because most plugins for WordPress are created by external developers, so sometimes code in the new WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were built for a previous version. Whenever this happens, there is a potential for conflicts to sometimes develop.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are quite proactive when it comes to ensuring that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if updating is required). All you need to do as a WordPress user, is simply keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is very simple, quick and easy to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins regularly updated and deleting old plugins you no longer need is an essential aspect of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid any potential problems and errors.
The tutorial below explains how to upgrade and delete WordPress plugins safely inside the WordPress admin dashboard without editing web code.
How To Update And Delete Plugins From The Dashboard – Tutorial
WordPress uses a number of different methods to let users know when plugins need updating.
For example, you can tell immediately how many plugins are out-of-date from your Administration panel by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, you can see that nine plugins need updating …
You can also see how many plugins need to be updated from your WordPress Toolbar (as shown below, nine plugins need to be updated) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you how many plugins need updating …
In addition to providing information about which plugins have available updates, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin download sites and gives you the option to update the plugin with one-click …
Let’s start by showing you how to upgrade individual WP plugins.
Updating Single Plugins
Always make a backup of your data and files before updating your website.
From your admin menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” screen. The table of plugins can be quite lengthy depending on how many plugins you have installed on your blog …
(Plugins Section)
Additional Info:
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 screen and type in a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show up on the page by default), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
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 “Search” box …
WordPress displays plugin information in different backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (inactive vs. active and up-to-date vs. outdated) …
Plugins that require updating show the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin] available” …
Select 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 screen …
Repeat this process for all plugins on your site that need updating, or refer to the section below if you have a number of plugins that are out-of-date and would like to upgrade them all in bulk.
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Now that you know how to upgrade WP plugins individually, the next step is to learn how to bulk-upgrade WordPress plugins.
How To Bulk-Upgrade Plugins
To bulk-upgrade 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 …
Tick the checkbox 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 drop down menu above your plugin list, choose Update …
And then click Apply …
Your selected plugins will begin to update automatically …
Once all updates have been completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to the Plugins screen, or visit 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) …
All plugins are now up-to-date!
(When your site uses the latest version of all plugins, notification icons no longer appear)
Now that you know how to automatically update your plugins, it’s time to learn how to delete plugins from your WordPress site.
How To Safely Remove WordPress Plugins
As part of smart blog management practices, it’s a good idea to delete inactive plugins. This helps to reduce resources on your server and eliminates potential problems.
In this section, we show you how to deactivate and delete unused plugins from your WordPress site.
We strongly recommend creating 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 restore your site.
To delete a plugin, go to your dashboard menu and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins page, find the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is inactive.
Hint: Inactive plugins appear in a different colored background than active plugins and show an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, click on Deactivate before proceeding …
Next, click Delete …
If you need 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” page …
All files belonging to the plugin that you are about to remove will be listed on your screen …
If you are certain that you would like to go ahead and delete these plugin, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugins and related files will be deleted …
How To Delete Multiple Plugins Simultaneously
You can delete all inactive plugins at once, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be deleted.
Note: To delete any plugins that are presently 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 checkbox, or selecting the check box 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 …
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 …
Tick the checkbox in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to delete by checking its box …
Once you have ticked all the check boxes next to the plugins that you want deleted, select Delete from the Bulk Actions dropdown 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 want to proceed to the next step and delete all of the selected plugins …
The selected plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Managing WP Plugins – Useful Tools
As well as the methods shown above, you can install a number of 3rd-party tools that let you 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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