In a separate blog post, we provide an overview of what WordPress plugins are about and how you can use these to extend your site’s functionality.
You can view this article here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping WordPress plugins up-to-date, how to easily update and uninstall your WordPress plugins, and some tips to help you better manage your plugins if you currently run or manage multiple WordPress sites or blogs.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Many WordPress Plugins Need Regular Updating
WordPress constantly updates its software (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in older software versions, as well as to improve existing features or introduce new functionality to users.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, you can expect to see at least some new new update notifications for WordPress plugins whenever new versions of WordPress are announced.
This is because most WordPress plugins are created by external developers, so sometimes the code in the newly-released WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were built for a previous version. Whenever this happens, conflicts can sometimes occur.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are very proactive when it comes to making sure that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if required). All you have to do on your end, is just maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is very simple and easy to do.
Keeping your plugins up-to-date and deleting old plugins you no longer need is part of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid problems and errors.
The WordPress tutorial below explains how to upgrade and delete plugins safely in the dashboard without requiring web coding or programming skills or knowledge.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins Safely – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress employs a number of different methods to let users know when plugins need updating.
For example, you can tell immediately how many plugins are out-of-date as soon as you log into your WordPress Dashboard simply by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, 9 WordPress plugins are out of date and need to be updated …
You can also tell how many plugins need updating from your WP Admin Toolbar (in the screenshot below, you can again see that 9 plugins should be updated) …
The Plugins page (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also lets you know which plugins need updating …
In addition to providing information about which plugins have available updates, the Plugins page provides links to the plugin download sites and gives you the option to update the plugins instantly …
Let’s start by learning how to update plugins one at a time.
Upgrading Single Plugins
We recommend making a full backup of your site files and database before making any updates to your website or blog.
In your dashboard menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” section will display in your browser. The table of plugins can go down your screen for some length, depending on how many plugins you have installed on your blog …
(Plugins Page)
Useful Tips:
If you have too many plugins and would like to reduce the number of plugins displayed on your page, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins page and type in a smaller number of items per page (by default, all plugins display on the page), then click Apply …
Your Plugins area 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” feature …
WordPress displays plugin information in different color backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (active vs. inactive and out-of-date vs up-to-date) …
Plugins in need of updating have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [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 process, so that updating your plugins happens “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat this 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 update all plugins in one simple operation.
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Now that you know how to update one WP plugin at a time, it’s time to learn how to bulk-update WordPress plugins.
How To Bulk-Upgrade WordPress Plugins
To bulk-update plugins 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 on 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 dropdown menu at the top of the page, select Update …
Click Apply …
Your selected plugins will automatically begin updating …
After all plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to your Plugins area, or choose another option from the dashboard menu …
Once all plugins are up-to-date, the update reminders 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 are now up-to-date!
(When plugins on your site are up-to-date, the notification icons no longer display)
Now that you know how to automatically update your inside the admin dashboard, let’s take a look at how to delete plugins safely from your WordPress blog or website.
Deleting 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 helps to eliminate problems.
In this section, you will learn how to delete unused plugins from your WordPress site.
Always create 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 remove a plugin, go to your WP admin menu and select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins screen, find the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is inactive.
Hint: Inactive plugins have 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 continuing with your plugin deletion …
Click on 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” page …
A complete list of files belonging to the plugin selected for deletionwill be listed on your screen …
If you are positively sure about going ahead and deleting the plugin files, just click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugin(s) will be removed from your server …
Deleting Several WP Plugins In Bulk
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be deleted.
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 checkbox, or selecting the checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …
Once you have done this, specify Deactivate from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click the Apply button …
All 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 …
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, choose Delete from the Bulk Actions pull-down 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 certain that you want to proceed to the next step and remove all of the selected plugins …
All plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Useful WordPress Tools For Managing WordPress Plugins
As well as the methods shown above, you can install WordPress plugins that let 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 was absolutely amazed at the scope and breadth of these tutorials! The most in-depth training I have ever received on any subject!" - Myke O'Neill, DailyGreenPost.com