In a previous article, we explain what plugins are and how you can use plugins to easily enhance your site’s capabilities.
To read this article, go here:
In this tutorial you will learn why plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to easily update and uninstall your WordPress plugins, and discover useful plugin management tips if you manage multiple WordPress sites.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Your Plugins Need To Be Updated
WordPress constantly updates its software (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in previous versions, and to improve existing features.
Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, you can expect to see at least some new new update notifications for WordPress plugins when new WordPress versions are announced.
This is because most plugins for WordPress are created by external developers, so sometimes code in the newly-released WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were developed for a previous version. When this happens, there is a potential for issues to 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 this is required). All you need to do as a website owner, is simply keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is very simple, quick and easy to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date and deleting old plugins you no longer use is part of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid conflicts or errors.
The WordPress tutorial below explains how to automatically upgrade and delete plugins safely in WordPress with no web programming skills needed.
How To Update And Delete Plugins – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress provides several ways 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For example, you can immediately see how many plugins are out-of-date as soon as you log into your Administration panel simply by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
In the screenshot below, you can see that nine WP plugins are out of date and need to be updated …
You can also check how many plugins need to be updated from your WordPress Administration Toolbar (the screenshot below shows that several plugins need updating) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also notifies you about plugins that need updating …
In addition to providing information about plugins that have updates available, the Plugins page provides links to the plugin download pages and gives you the option to update the plugin individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by learning how to upgrade one WordPress plugin at a time.
Upgrading Single A Plugin
Always make a full backup of your data and files before upgrading your website or blog.
In your WP admin menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” section. This screen can be quite lengthy depending on how many plugins you have installed on your blog …
(Plugins Section)
Useful 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 (by default, all plugins display on the page), then click Apply …
Your Plugins section will now be reduced in size with a page scrolling feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Search Plugins” function …
You will see information about plugins in different color backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (inactive vs. active and up-to-date vs. out-of-date) …
Plugins that require updating show the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin Name] available” …
Locate the plugin that you want to update and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides simple plugin updates, so that updating your plugins happens with just “one click” 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 update them all at the same time.
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Now that you know how to update WordPress plugins individually, let’s show you how to upgrade multiple plugins simultaneously.
Bulk-Upgrading Plugins
To bulk-update WordPress 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 …
Click on the checkbox 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 above your plugin list, choose Update …
Click Apply …
Your selected plugins will automatically begin updating …
After all updates are finished, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to your Plugins area, or go to another section of your dashboard …
Once all plugins are up-to-date, any plugin alerts will disappear (i.e. the “at-a-glance” indicators and “There is a new version of XYZ plugin available” messages no longer display on your screen, toolbar and menus) …
You have updated all plugins on your site to their latest version!
(When your plugins are all up-to-date, update alerts do not display)
Now that you know how to automatically update your in your admin dashboard, let’s take a look at how to safely remove plugins from your site.
How To Safely Remove Plugins
At times, you may want to remove plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This can help decrease resource usage and will help you avoid problems.
In this section, we show you how to safely delete 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 restore your site.
To delete a plugin, go to your dashboard menu and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins area, locate the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is deactivated.
Hint: Inactive plugins have a different background color than active plugins and display an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, then click on Deactivate before continuing with your plugin deletion …
Next, click Delete …
If you need to review a list of all the files that will be deleted before proceeding any further, 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 associated with the plugin selected for deletionwill display on your screen …
If you are sure that you want to proceed and delete these plugin files, just click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugin(s) will be deleted …
Deleting Multiple 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) …
Once you have done this, select Deactivate from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click the Apply button …
All selected plugins will be deactivated …
To delete all or some of the inactive plugins, go to the “Plugins” area and click on the Inactive link on the main menu …
Select all of the plugins you want to delete by either placing a tick next to their checkbox, or click on the check box 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, specify Delete from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click the Apply button …
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 absolutely 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
In addition to the methods shown above, you can use a range of 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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"I have used the tutorials to teach all of my clients and it has probably never been so easy for everyone to learn WordPress ... Now I don't need to buy all these very expensive video courses that often don't deliver what they promise." - Stefan Wendt, Internet Marketing Success Group