In a separate post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use plugins to enhance your website’s functionality.
To read the article, go here:
In this tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping plugins up-to-date, how to update and remove your WordPress plugins, and useful plugin management tips.
Why Plugins Need To Be Frequently Updated
The WordPress software is constantly updated (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in earlier software versions, and to improve existing features.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, you can expect to see at least some new new update notices for plugins each time a new WordPress version is made available.
The reason for this, is because most WordPress plugins are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes code in the newly-released WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were developed and tested with a previous version. Whenever this happens, issues can 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 this 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 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 conflicts and errors.
The tutorial below explains how to upgrade and delete plugins inside the WP dashboard with no coding skills required.
Upgrading And Deleting Plugins From The WP Dashboard – Tutorial
WordPress utilizes several ways to alert you when plugins need updating.
For example, you can instantly see how many plugins are out-of-date inside your WordPress Dashboard simply by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
In the example below, you can see that nine WP plugins have older versions that need to be updated …
You can also tell how many plugins need to be updated from your WordPress Toolbar (the example below shows that a number of plugins should be brought up to date) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also provides information about plugins that need to be updated …
In addition to providing information about plugins that have updates available, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin download sites and gives you the option to update your plugin instantly …
Let’s start by showing you how to update plugins individually.
Upgrade Individual Plugins
Always make a full backup of your data and files before updating your blog or website.
In your admin menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” area. This list of plugins can be quite long depending on the number of plugins you have installed in your blog …
(Plugins Screen)
Notes:
If you have too many plugins installed 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 area and enter a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show up on the page by default, i.e. “999”), 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 “Search” box …
WordPress displays information about plugins in different backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (inactive vs. active and outdated vs up-to-date) …
Plugins that need updating have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin Name] available” …
Find the plugin that you want to update and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides streamlined plugin updates, so that the process of updating your plugins happens “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat the above 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 upgrade them all in one simple operation.
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Now that you know how to update individual WP plugins, it’s time to learn how to bulk-update plugins.
Bulk-Upgrading WordPress Plugins
To update multiple plugins at the same time from your admin area, go to the “Plugins” screen and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Click on the check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to upgrade by checking their individual boxes …
In the Bulk Actions dropdown menu above your plugin table, select Update …
Click Apply …
Your selected plugins will begin the update process …
After your plugins have all been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to your Plugins screen, or choose another 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” messages no longer display) …
You have updated all plugins on your site to their latest version!
(When your site or blog uses the latest version of all plugins, update notices do not display)
Now that you know how to update WordPress plugins, let’s take a look at how to delete plugins safely from your WordPress blog or website.
How To Delete WordPress Plugins
As part of good WordPress blog management, it’s a good idea to remove plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This helps to decrease resource usage and also help to eliminate causes of problems.
In this section, you will learn how to uninstall unused plugins from your site or blog.
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 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 use a different background color than active plugins and show an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, then click on Deactivate before continuing with your plugin deletion …
Click on Delete …
If you need to browse 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 selected for deletionwill display on your screen …
If you are positively sure that you would like to go ahead and delete the plugin files, then click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugins and related files will be removed from your server …
Deleting Several WP Plugins At Once
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins on your site, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be uninstalled.
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 check box, 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 …
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 …
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 check boxes next to the plugins that you want deleted, choose Delete from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click Apply …
A list of all selected plugins will display 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 sure that you want to proceed to the next step and remove all of the selected plugins …
Your selected plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
WordPress Management Tools For WordPress Plugins
As well as the methods shown above, you can install a range of third-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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