In a previous post, we provide a detailed explanation of what WP plugins are all about and how you can use these to add new features to your website with no technical knowledge required.
To read the article, go here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn why plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to easily upgrade and remove plugins, and some great plugin management tools.
Why Some WordPress Plugins Need To Be Regularly Upgraded
New WordPress versions are regularly released (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in earlier releases, as well as to improve existing features.
Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, there will typically be new updates for WordPress plugins every.
The reason for this, is because most WordPress plugins are created by external developers, so sometimes code in the newly-released WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were created and tested to work with a previous version. Whenever this happens, there is a potential for problems 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 required). All you need to do as a WordPress user, is simply maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is very easy to do.
Keeping your plugins regularly updated and deleting old plugins you no longer use is an essential aspect of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid potential errors or problems.
The WordPress step-by-step tutorial below explains how to automatically upgrade and delete plugins in the WP admin dashboard without web coding knowledge needed.
How To Update And Delete Plugins In WordPress – Tutorial
WordPress uses several methods to let you know when your plugins need updating.
For example, you can see ‘at a glance’ how many plugins are out-of-date inside your Admin area just by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, nine WordPress plugins have older versions that need to be updated …
You can also view how many plugins need to be updated from your WordPress Toolbar (the example below shows how many plugins should be brought up to date) …
The Plugins page (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you what plugins need updating …
As well as providing information about plugins that have updates available, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin download pages and gives you the option to update your plugin individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by learning how to update WP plugins one at a time.
How To Upgrade Plugins Individually
Always make a backup of your website before upgrading your website or blog.
In your WP admin menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” section will display in your browser. The list of plugins can run down your screen for some length, depending on how many plugins you have added to your site …
(Plugins Section)
Useful Information:
If you have too many plugins installed and would like to make this section more manageable, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins page and enter a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show up on the screen by default), 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 “Search Plugins” box …
WordPress displays information about plugins in different backgrounds depending on the status of the 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 [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 plugin update process, so that updating your plugins takes place “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 many plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update all plugins in one simple operation.
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Now that you know how to upgrade plugins individually, the next step is to learn how to update many WP plugins simultaneously.
How To Upgrade Many WordPress Plugins
To update multiple plugins in a single operation directly inside your dashboard, go to the “Plugins” section 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 upgrade by checking its box …
In the Bulk Actions dropdown menu at the top of the page, choose Update …
And then click Apply …
Your selected plugins will begin updating …
After all plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to your Plugins section, or select another option from the sidebar menu …
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” notices no longer display) …
All plugins have now been updated!
(When plugins on your site are all up-to-date, update messages disappear)
Now that you know how to update WP inside the dashboard, let’s take a look at how to delete plugins safely from your site or blog.
How To Delete WP Plugins
At times, you may choose to remove plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This conserves server resources and also help to eliminate potential problems.
In this section, you will learn how to safely remove unused plugins from your WordPress 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 dashboard menu and select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins section, locate the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is deactivated.
Hint: Inactive plugins appear in 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 proceeding with your plugin deletion …
Click Delete …
If you need to browse all the files that will be deleted before going ahead with the next step, then click on the “Click to view entire list of files which will be deleted” link in the “Delete Plugin” page …
The entire list of files associated with the plugin that you are about to remove will display on your screen …
If you are positively certain that you would like to go ahead and delete the selected plugin files, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugins and related files will be deleted …
How To Safely Bulk-Delete Plugins
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 presently 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 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 pull-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” section and click on the Inactive link in the Plugins menu …
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 of the plugins that you want to delete, choose 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 plugins listed …
All plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Useful Tools For Managing Plugins
As well as 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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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now