In a separate article, we provide an overview of what WordPress plugins are about and how you can use plugins to expand your web site’s functionality.
To view the article, go here:
In this tutorial you will learn why WordPress plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to easily update and uninstall plugins, and discover practical tips to help you better manage your plugins if you need to manage multiple WordPress sites.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Plugins Need To Be Regularly Upgraded
New WordPress versions are regularly released (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in older software releases, as well as 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 notices for WordPress plugins whenever WordPress releases an updated version.
The reason for this, is because most plugins for WordPress are created by third-party developers, so sometimes the code in the newly-released WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were built for a previous version. Whenever this happens, there is a potential for issues to 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 needed). All you have to do on your end, is simply keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is really easy and simple to do.
Keeping your plugins up-to-date and removing old plugins you no longer use is an essential aspect of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid errors and problems.
The step-by-step tutorial below explains how to automatically update and delete plugins with no web coding knowledge or skills necessary.
Updating And Deleting Plugins Safely – Tutorial
WordPress has a few ways of letting you know when your plugins need updating.
For example, you can tell immediately how many plugins are out-of-date inside your Admin area simply by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, you can see that nine plugins have older versions that need updating …
You can also tell how many plugins need updating from your WP Toolbar (in the screenshot below, you can see how many plugins need updating) …
The Plugins screen (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also provides information about plugins that need updating …
As well as providing information about plugins that have updates available, the Plugins screen provides links to the plugin developer pages and gives you the option to update the plugins instantly …
Let’s start by showing you how to update WP plugins individually.
Update Plugins One At A Time
We strongly recommend performing a backup of your site files and database before making any upgrades to your website or blog.
In your dashboard menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” area. This table of plugins can be quite lengthy depending on how many plugins you have added to your blog …
(Plugins Section)
Useful Information:
If you have too many plugins installed and would like to reduce the number of plugins displayed on the page, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins area and type in a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show up on the screen by default), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
Your Plugins section 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 Installed Plugins” box …
You will see information about plugins in different color backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (active vs. inactive and out-of-date vs up-to-date) …
Plugins in need of upgrading show the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin] available” …
Select the plugin that needs to be updated and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides streamlined plugin updates, so that the process of updating your plugins takes place “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat this 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 update them all in one simple operation.
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Now that you know how to update individual plugins, it’s time to learn how to upgrade multiple WP plugins simultaneously.
Bulk-Updating Plugins
To bulk-update WordPress plugins simultaneously 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 …
Tick the checkbox in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to upgrade by checking its box …
In the Bulk Actions drop-down menu above the plugin list, select Update …
Click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will automatically begin updating …
After your plugins have all been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to the Plugins section, or select another option from the main menu …
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 on your screen, toolbar and menus) …
You have updated all plugins on your site to their latest version!
(When your site or blog uses the latest version of all plugins, notification icons do not display)
Now that you know how to automatically upgrade WordPress in the dashboard, it’s time to learn how to safely remove plugins from your blog or website.
How To Safely Remove WP Plugins
Occasionally, you may decide to delete WordPress plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This helps to conserve resource usage and eliminate potential problems.
In this section, you will learn how to delete unused plugins from your WordPress 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 choose Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins area, find the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is inactive.
Hint: Inactive plugins are listed 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 …
Once you have deactivated the plugin, click Delete …
If you want to review a list of 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” section …
A complete 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, then click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugins and related files will be removed from your WordPress installation …
Deleting Multiple 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, your will 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) …
Next, choose Deactivate from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click Apply …
The 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, select Delete from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click Apply …
A list of all selected plugins will be displayed in the Delete Plugins screen. 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 go ahead and remove all of the plugins listed …
Your selected plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
WordPress Management Tools For Plugins
As well as the methods shown above, you can use a range of third-party tools that let you 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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