How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins

Learn how to update and delete WordPress plugins inside your WordPress dashboard…

How To Automatically Update And Delete WordPress Plugins In The WordPress Admin DashboardIn a separate article, we explain what plugins are and how you can use these to easily add new features and functionality to your web site with no software programming knowledge required.

To view this article, go here:

In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn why plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to safely update and delete plugins, and useful tips to help you better manage your plugins if you plan to run or manage multiple WordPress sites or blogs.

How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins

Why Plugins Need To Be Upgraded

The WordPress software is regularly updated (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in previous versions, and to improve existing features or introduce new ones.

Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, there will typically be new new update notifications for plugins every.

The reason for this, is because most WordPress plugins are created by external developers, so sometimes the code in the new WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were built for a previous version. When this happens, there is a potential for conflicts 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 updating is needed). All you need to do as a WordPress user, is just keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is very simple and easy to do.

Important

Keeping your plugins up-to-date and deleting old plugins you no longer use is an essential aspect of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid any potential problems or errors.

The WordPress step-by-step tutorial below explains how to automatically upgrade and delete plugins inside your WordPress admin dashboard without requiring web coding skills or knowledge.

Updating And Deleting Plugins Safely – Tutorial

WordPress provides several methods of letting you know when plugins on your site need updating.

For example, you can instantly see how many plugins are out-of-date inside your Administration area by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.

For example, in the screenshot below, you can see that nine plugins need to be updated …

Upgrading And Deleting WordPress Plugins Safely In The Dashboard

You can also check how many plugins need updating from your WordPress Toolbar (as shown below, a number of plugins should be brought up to date) …

How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins Safely

The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also lets you know which plugins need updating …

Updating And Deleting WordPress Plugins

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 plugin individually or in bulk …

How To Automatically Update And Delete Plugins Safely In The Dashboard

Let’s start by learning how to upgrade WordPress plugins individually.

Upgrading WordPress Plugins Individually

Warning

We strongly recommend performing a full backup of your website before upgrading your website.

From your dashboard menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins

Updating And Deleting Plugins Safely From The Dashboard

The “Plugins” screen will display in your browser. The page can be quite long depending on the number of plugins you have added to your site …

Upgrading And Deleting Plugins Safely From Your Dashboard

(Plugins Screen)

Useful Tip

Additional Info:

If you have too many plugins installed and would like to reduce the number of plugins displayed on your screen, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins page and enter a smaller number of items per page (by default, all plugins display on the screen), then click Apply …

How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins Safely Inside The WordPress Admin Dashboard

Your Plugins page 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 “Plugin Search” function …

How To Upgrade And Delete Plugins Safely

You will see information about plugins in different color backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (active vs. inactive and up-to-date vs. outdated) …

Upgrading And Deleting Plugins Safely In WordPress

Plugins that need updating display the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin Name] available”

Upgrading And Deleting WordPress Plugins Safely From The Dashboard

Select the plugin that needs updating and click on the update now link …

Updating And Deleting Plugins From The Dashboard

WordPress provides faster plugin updating, so that the process of updating your plugins happens with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins screen …

How To Automatically Update And Delete Plugins Safely In WordPress

Repeat the above process for any other plugins on your site that need to be updated, or refer to the section below if you have a number of plugins that are out-of-date and would like to upgrade them all in bulk.

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Now that you know how to upgrade WordPress plugins one at a time, let’s show you how to update many WordPress plugins simultaneously.

Bulk-Upgrading Plugins

To bulk-upgrade WP 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 …

Updating And Deleting Plugins

Tick the checkbox in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to upgrade by checking their individual boxes …

Upgrading And Deleting Plugins Safely In The WP Admin Dashboard

In the Bulk Actions drop down menu above your plugin list, select Update

How To Automatically Upgrade And Delete Plugins In WordPress

And then click Apply

Upgrading And Deleting Plugins Safely In WordPress

Your selected plugins will begin the update process …

Updating And Deleting Plugins In Your WP Admin Dashboard

Once the update process has completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to the Plugins section, or visit another section of your dashboard …

How To Update And Delete Plugins In WordPress

Once all plugins are 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) …

How To Automatically Upgrade And Delete WordPress Plugins In The Dashboard

You have updated all plugins on your site!

Updating And Deleting Plugins Safely In WordPress

(When plugins on your site are all up-to-date, the notification icons disappear)

Now that you know how to automatically update plugins, let’s show you how to remove plugins from your WordPress blog or website.

Deleting WordPress Plugins

Occasionally, you may want to remove WordPress plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This helps to decrease server resources and help you avoid problems.

In this section, we show you how to remove unused plugins from your site or blog.

Warning

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 remove a plugin, go to your admin menu and choose Plugins > Installed Plugins

Upgrading And Deleting WordPress Plugins In Your Dashboard

In the Plugins area, locate the plugin you want to delete 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 …

Updating And Deleting Plugins Safely Inside The WP Admin Dashboard

If the plugin is active, click on Deactivate before proceeding …

Updating And Deleting WordPress Plugins

Next, click on Delete

How To Automatically Update And Delete Plugins Inside The Dashboard

If you want to browse 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” page …

How To Upgrade And Delete Plugins Safely In Your WordPress Dashboard

The entire list of files belonging to the plugin that you are about to delete will be listed on your screen …

How To Automatically Upgrade And Delete Plugins In WordPress

If you are positively sure about going ahead and deleting the plugin, then click on the Yes, Delete these files button …

Updating And Deleting WordPress Plugins Safely Inside The WP Admin Dashboard

The selected plugins and related files will be removed from your server …

How To Upgrade And Delete Plugins Inside Your WordPress Dashboard

Deleting Several Plugins In Bulk

You can delete all inactive plugins at once, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be uninstalled.

Info

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) …

Upgrading And Deleting Plugins Safely In WordPress

Next, specify Deactivate from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …

How To Automatically Upgrade And Delete Plugins In WordPress

Click the Apply button …

Updating And Deleting Plugins In The Dashboard

The selected plugins will be deactivated …

Updating And Deleting Plugins In Your WP Dashboard

To delete all or some of the inactive plugins on your site, go to the “Plugins” screen and click on the Inactive link on the main menu …

How To Upgrade And Delete Plugins Safely In The Dashboard

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 …

How To Automatically Upgrade And Delete Plugins Safely

Once you have ticked all the check boxes next to the plugins that you want to delete, choose Delete from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …

Updating And Deleting Plugins Inside The WP Admin Dashboard

Click Apply

Upgrading And Deleting Plugins Safely

A list of all selected plugins will show up 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 absolutely certain that you want to go ahead and delete all of the plugins listed …

Upgrading And Deleting Plugins Safely From The Dashboard

Your plugins will be deleted …

How To Automatically Update And Delete Plugins Safely

WP Plugin Management – Useful Tools

In addition to the methods shown above, you can install a range of 3rd-party tools that help you manage your WordPress plugins.

Health Check & troubleshooting

Health Check & Troubleshooting WordPress plugin
Health Check identifies common problems and helps you troubleshoot plugin and theme conflicts.

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

WPMU DEV's The Hub - Unlimited WordPress Site Management
WPMU DEV’s The Hub – Unlimited WordPress Site Management

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.

WPMU DEV: The Hub - My Sites - Updates menu

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.

WPMU DEV: The Hub - My Sites - Updates menu

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.

The Hub - Update notifications.
This feature can help you save a lot of time updating multiple WordPress sites, especially when WordPress releases a new version of its software.

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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Originally published as How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins.