In a separate post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use plugins to easily increase your site’s functionality.
You can view this article here:
In this tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping WordPress plugins up-to-date, how to easily update and remove plugins, and discover some plugin management tools if you need to run multiple WordPress sites.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Some Of Your WordPress Plugins Need Upgrading
New versions of WordPress are regularly released (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in previous software releases, and to improve existing features or introduce new functionality to users.
Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, you can expect to see at least some new updates for plugins whenever new versions of WordPress are released.
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 developed and tested with a previous version. Whenever this happens, there is a potential for problems to sometimes occur.
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 maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is really easy to do.
Keeping your plugins regularly updated and deleting old plugins you no longer need is part of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid any potential errors and conflicts.
The tutorial below explains how to update and delete plugins from your WP dashboard without editing web code.
Upgrading And Deleting Plugins – Tutorial
WordPress employs a number of different ways to let you know when your plugins need updating.
For example, you can see ‘at a glance’ how many plugins need to be updated as soon as you log into your Admin area by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
In the screenshot below, you can see that nine WordPress plugins have older versions that need updating …
You can also view how many plugins need updating from your WordPress Admin Toolbar (the example below shows how many plugins need updating) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also lets you know which plugins need to be updated …
In addition to providing information about which plugins have available updates, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin download pages and gives you the option to update your plugins individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by learning how to update individual plugins.
Upgrading Single A Plugin
Always make a complete backup of your data and files before upgrading your website or blog.
In your dashboard menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” page. This list of plugins can be quite lengthy depending on how many plugins you have installed in your blog …
(Plugins Page)
Additional 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 area and type in a smaller number of items per page (by default, all plugins display on the screen), then click Apply …
Your Plugins section 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 “Plugin Search” box …
You will see plugin information in different color backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (active vs. inactive and up-to-date vs. outdated) …
Plugins in need of upgrading display the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin Name] available” …
Select the plugin that you want to update and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides streamlined plugin updates, so that updating your plugins takes place with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat the above process for all 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 upgrade all plugins in bulk.
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Now that you know how to update individual plugins, the next step is to learn how to upgrade a bunch of WP plugins simultaneously.
How To Update Many WP Plugins Simultaneously
To update multiple plugins simultaneously directly inside your dashboard, go to the “Plugins” area and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Click the checkbox in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to update by checking its box …
In the Bulk Actions dropdown menu above the table of plugins, choose Update …
Click Apply …
Your selected plugins will begin the update process …
Once all plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to the Plugins section, or go to a different 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” messages no longer display on your screen, toolbar and menus) …
All plugins have now been upgraded!
(When your plugins are all up-to-date, notification icons do not display)
Now that you know how to update WP plugins, let’s take a look at how to uninstall plugins safely from your site.
How To Safely Delete WordPress Plugins
Occasionally, you may decide to delete WP plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This helps to reduce resource usage and also help to reduce potential problems.
In this section, you will learn how to safely deactivate and delete unused plugins from your WordPress site.
We strongly recommend creating 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 screen, locate the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is inactive.
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 going any further …
Next, click on Delete …
If you need to review a list of all the files that will be deleted before proceeding, then click on the “Click to view entire list of files which will be deleted” link in the “Delete Plugin” screen …
The entire list of files belonging to the plugin selected for removalwill display on your screen …
If you are certain about going ahead and deleting these plugin, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugin(s) will be deleted …
How To Bulk-Delete 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 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, select Deactivate from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click the Apply button …
The selected plugins will be deactivated …
To delete all or some of the inactive plugins on your site, 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 check box, or click on the checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select and delete all inactive plugins …
Once you have ticked all the checkboxes next to the plugins that you want deleted, specify Delete from the Bulk Actions drop-down menu …
Click Apply …
A list of all selected plugins will be displayed 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 want to go ahead and delete all of the plugins listed …
The selected plugins will be deleted …
WordPress Management Tools For WordPress Plugins
As well as the methods shown above, you can install a range of 3rd-party tools that help you 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