In a separate blog post, we provide an overview of what WordPress plugins are about and how you can use these to easily add new features and functionality to your website with no coding knowledge required.
To read the article, go here:
In this tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping WordPress plugins up-to-date, how to easily update and delete plugins from your site, and some plugin management tips.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Many Of Your Plugins Need To Be Updated
New WordPress versions are regularly released (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in older versions, as well as to improve existing features or introduce new functionality to users.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, there will typically be new new update notifications for WordPress plugins each time a new WordPress version is made available.
The reason for this, is because most plugins for WordPress are created by external developers, so sometimes the code in the newly-released WordPress version conflict with plugins that were created and tested to work with a previous version. Whenever this happens, problems can sometimes develop.
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 have to do on your end, is keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is very simple, quick and easy to do.
Keeping your 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 any errors and problems.
The step-by-step tutorial below explains how to update and delete plugins safely without requiring web coding or programming knowledge or skills.
Updating And Deleting WordPress Plugins In Your WordPress Admin Dashboard – Tutorial
WordPress provides a number of different methods of letting you know when your plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can immediately see how many plugins are out-of-date as soon as you log into your Admin area simply by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, nine plugins are out of date and need to be updated …
You can also tell how many plugins need updating from your WP Administration Toolbar (in the screenshot below, you can again see that 9 plugins should be brought up to date) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you how many plugins need to be updated …
In addition to providing information about plugins that have updates available, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin developer pages and gives you the option to update the plugin with one-click …
Let’s start by learning how to update one plugin at a time.
Update WordPress Plugins One At A Time
Always make a complete backup of your site files and database before making any upgrades to your website or blog.
In your main menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” area will display in your browser. The table of plugins can run down your page for a while, depending on the number of plugins you have installed in your site …
(WordPress Plugins Screen)
Additional Information:
If you have too many plugins and would like to reduce the number of plugins showing on the page, 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 screen 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 Plugins” box …
You will see plugin information in different backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (inactive vs. active and out-of-date vs up-to-date) …
Plugins that require upgrading show the following 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 has done away with the loading screen when updating plugins and streamlined the plugin updating process, so that updating your plugins takes place with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat this process for any other plugins on your site that need to be updated, or refer to the section below if you have many plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update all plugins at the same time.
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Now that you know how to update plugins individually, let’s show you how to upgrade several plugins simultaneously.
Bulk-Upgrading WordPress Plugins
To update multiple plugins in one go 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 …
Tick the check box in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to upgrade by checking their individual boxes …
In the Bulk Actions drop-down menu at the top of the page, select Update …
And then click Apply …
Your selected plugins will automatically begin updating …
Once all plugin updates are completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to the Plugins area, or go to a different section of your dashboard …
Once your plugins are all up-to-date, the plugin notifications disappear (i.e. the “at-a-glance” indicators and “There is a new version of XYZ plugin available” messages no longer display) …
All plugins have now been upgraded to their latest versions!
(When your site uses the latest version of all plugins, update notices no longer appear)
Now that you know how to automatically update in your dashboard, let’s take a look at how to remove plugins from your WordPress site.
Deleting WordPress Plugins
At times, you may choose to delete WP plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This can help to conserve resources on your server and also will help you avoid causes of problems.
In this section, you will learn how to safely 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 reinstall your site.
To remove a plugin, go to your admin menu and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins section, find the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is inactive.
Hint: Inactive plugins have 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 continuing with your plugin deletion …
Next, click on Delete …
If you need 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” page …
A complete list of files associated with the plugin that you are about to remove will display on your screen …
If you are absolutely certain that you would like to go ahead and delete the selected plugin files, then click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugins and related files will be deleted …
Bulk-Deleting WordPress Plugins
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins on your site, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be deleted.
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 check box, or selecting the checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …
Next, choose Deactivate from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click the Apply button …
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 …
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 selected all of the plugins that you want deleted, specify Delete from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click the Apply button …
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 sure that you would like to proceed to the next step and remove all of the plugins listed …
All plugins will be deleted …
Useful WordPress Tools For Managing WP Plugins
In addition to the methods shown above, you can install WordPress plugins 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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