In another article, we provide an overview of what plugins are all about and how you can use these to easily add new features to your website with no coding skills required.
You can read the article here:
In this tutorial you will learn why plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to automatically update and remove your WordPress plugins, and useful plugin management tools.
Why Many WordPress Plugins Need Upgrading
The WordPress software is regularly updated (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in older versions, as well as to improve existing features or introduce new functionality to WordPress users.
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.
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 created and tested to work with a previous version. When this happens, conflicts can sometimes occur.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are fairly proactive when it comes to making sure 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 just maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is very simple and easy to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date and deleting old plugins you no longer need is an essential aspect of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid errors and problems.
The WordPress tutorial below explains how to update and delete plugins safely in WordPress without web coding knowledge necessary.
Updating And Deleting WordPress Plugins In Your WP Dashboard – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress uses several ways to inform users when plugins need updating.
For example, you can see how many plugins need to be updated as soon as you log into your WP Dashboard simply by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, you can see that nine WordPress plugins need updating …
You can also check how many plugins need updating from your WordPress Toolbar (the example below shows how many plugins require updating) …
The Plugins page (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also notifies you about plugins that need updating …
In addition to 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 your plugins with one-click …
Let’s start by learning how to upgrade individual WordPress plugins.
Updating Plugins One At A Time
We recommend performing a full backup of your site files and database before making any upgrades to your website or blog.
From your dashboard menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” section will display in your browser. The screen can be quite long depending on the number of plugins you have added to your site …
(The WordPress Plugins Section)
Additional Information:
If you have too many plugins and would like to reduce the number of plugins showing on your 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 on the screen by default, i.e. “999”), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
Your Plugins page will now be made more manageable with a ’numbered pages’ feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Search Installed Plugins” function …
WordPress displays information about plugins in different color backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (active vs. inactive and outdated vs up-to-date) …
Plugins that need upgrading have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin Name] available” …
Select the plugin that needs to be updated and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides smooth and simpler plugin updates, so that the process of updating your plugins takes place “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat the above 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 update them all in one simple operation.
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Now that you know how to upgrade WP plugins one at a time, the next step is to learn how to update several WP plugins simultaneously.
Bulk-Updating Plugins
To bulk-upgrade 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 check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to update by checking their individual boxes …
In the Bulk Actions dropdown menu above the table of plugins, select Update …
Click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will begin updating …
After the update process has completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to your Plugins section, or visit another section of your dashboard …
Once all plugins are up-to-date, the update reminders will disappear (i.e. the “at-a-glance” indicators and “There is a new version of XYZ plugin available” notices no longer display) …
You have updated all plugins on your site!
(When your site uses the latest version of all plugins, update messages do not display)
Now that you know how to automatically upgrade WordPress in your dashboard, let’s take a look at how to remove plugins from your WordPress site.
Deleting WP Plugins
At times, you may choose to remove WP plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This can help conserve resource usage and eliminates potential problems.
In this section, you will learn how to safely uninstall unused plugins from your site or blog.
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 section, locate 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 with your plugin deletion …
Next, click on Delete …
If you would like to browse all the files that will be deleted before taking the next step, then click on the “Click to view entire list of files which will be deleted” link in the “Delete Plugin” screen …
A complete list of files belonging to the plugin selected for removalwill display on your screen …
If you are absolutely sure about going ahead and deleting the plugin, then click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugins and related files will be deleted from your WordPress installation …
Deleting Multiple WP Plugins At Once
You can delete all inactive plugins at once, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be uninstalled.
Note: To delete any plugins that are currently 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 check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …
Next, choose Deactivate from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click Apply …
Your selected plugins will be deactivated …
To delete all or some of the inactive plugins on your site, go to the “Plugins” page and click on the Inactive link in the Plugins menu …
Click on the check box in 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 ticked all the check boxes next to the plugins that you want deleted, select Delete from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click Apply …
A list of all selected plugins will show up 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 absolutely certain that you would like to proceed to the next step and delete all of the selected plugins …
Your selected plugins will be deleted …
Tools For Managing Plugins
In addition to the methods shown above, you can use a range of 3rd-party tools 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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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)