In a previous article, we provide a detailed explanation of what WordPress plugins are about and how you can use these to increase your website’s capabilities.
To view this article, go here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping all plugins up-to-date, how to safely update and delete plugins from your site, and discover useful plugin management tools.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Many Of Your Plugins Need To Be Regularly Upgraded
The WordPress software is regularly updated (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in earlier releases, and to improve existing features or introduce new functionality to users.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, there will typically be new new update notifications for plugins every.
This is because most WordPress plugins are created by third-party developers, so sometimes code or features in the new WordPress version conflict 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 fairly proactive when it comes to making sure that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if this is needed). All you need to do as a WordPress user, is just keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is very easy and simple to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins regularly updated and removing old plugins you no longer need is part of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid any potential errors and problems.
The step-by-step tutorial below explains how to upgrade and delete WordPress plugins safely with no web programming knowledge needed.
How To Upgrade And Delete Plugins – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress provides a few methods to let you know when plugins on your blog need to be updated.
For example, you can instantly see how many plugins are out-of-date inside your Administration panel simply by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
In the example below, you can see that nine plugins are out of date and need to be updated …
You can also view how many plugins need to be updated from your WP Notification Toolbar (as shown below, a number of plugins require updating) …
The Plugins page (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you which plugins need updating …
As well as providing information about which plugins have updates available, the Plugins page provides links to the plugin download pages and gives you the option to update the plugins with one-click …
Let’s start by learning how to upgrade WP plugins one at a time.
How To Upgrade Plugins One At A Time
We recommend making a backup of your site files and database before making any changes to your website or blog.
In your dashboard menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” area will display in your browser. The table of plugins can flow down your page for a while, depending on the number of plugins you have added to your site …
(WordPress Plugins Page)
Tips:
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 area and enter a smaller number of items per page (by default, all plugins display on the page), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
Your Plugins area will now be reduced in size with a ’numbered pages’ feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Search Installed Plugins” field …
WordPress displays information about plugins in different color backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (active vs. inactive and up-to-date vs. outdated) …
Plugins that require upgrading have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Insert Plugin Name] available” …
Select the plugin that you want to update and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides simpler plugin updating, so that the process of updating your plugins takes place “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat this process for any other plugins on your site that need to be updated, or refer to the section below if you have several plugins that are out-of-date and would like to upgrade all plugins at the same time.
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Now that you know how to update one plugin at a time, the next step is to learn how to upgrade several plugins simultaneously.
Bulk-Upgrading Plugins
To bulk-update plugins from your admin area, go to the “Plugins” page and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Click the checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to update by checking their individual boxes …
In the Bulk Actions drop down menu at the top of the page, select Update …
And then click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will begin updating …
Once all updates have been completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to the Plugins screen, or select another option from the WordPress admin 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 your site or blog uses the latest version of all plugins, notification icons disappear)
Now that you know how to automatically upgrade plugins, let’s show you how to safely remove plugins safely from your site or blog.
How To Safely Delete WordPress Plugins
As part of good WordPress blog management, it’s a good idea to delete inactive plugins. This reduces resources on your server and also help you avoid potential problems.
In this section, we show you how to safely remove unused plugins from your site or blog.
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 click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins screen, 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 …
If the plugin is active, then click on Deactivate before proceeding …
Next, click Delete …
If you need 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 selected for removalwill display on your screen …
If you are positively certain that you would like to go ahead and delete the plugin files, then click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugin(s) will be deleted …
How To Bulk-Delete WordPress Plugins
You can delete all inactive plugins at once, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be cleared.
Note: To delete any plugins that are presently 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) …
Next, specify Deactivate from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click Apply …
The selected plugins will be deactivated …
To delete all or some of the inactive plugins, go to the “Plugins” section and click on the Inactive link in the Plugins menu …
Click the checkbox in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to remove by checking their individual boxes …
Once you have ticked all the check boxes next to the plugins that you want deleted, choose Delete from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click Apply …
A list of all selected plugins will show up 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 would like to go ahead and delete all of the plugins listed …
All plugins will be deleted …
Management Tools For Plugins
In addition to the methods shown above, you can use a range of third-party tools to 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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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)