In a separate article, we explain what plugins are and how you can use these to add new features or functionality to your web site with no coding knowledge required.
To read the article, go here:
In this tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date, how to update and uninstall plugins from your site, and discover some great plugin management tips.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Some Of Your WordPress Plugins Need To Be Updated
The WordPress software is regularly updated (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in earlier 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 updates for plugins each time a new version of WordPress is released.
This is because most plugins for WordPress are created by external developers, so sometimes code or features in the newly-released WordPress version conflict with plugins that were created and tested to work with a previous version. Whenever this happens, there is a potential for conflicts to sometimes develop.
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 keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is really simple, quick and easy to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date and removing old plugins you no longer need is an essential aspect of good WordPress management and helps to avoid potential problems and errors.
The tutorial below explains how to automatically update and delete plugins safely inside your WordPress admin dashboard without requiring coding knowledge or skills.
How To Automatically Update And Delete Plugins Inside The WP Admin Dashboard – Tutorial
WordPress uses several methods to alert users when plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can see ‘at a glance’ how many plugins need updating from your WP Dashboard simply by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
In the screenshot below, you can see that 9 WordPress plugins are out of date and need to be updated …
You can also view how many plugins need to be updated from your WordPress Admin Toolbar (in the example below, you can again see that 9 plugins require updating) …
The Plugins screen (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also lets you know which plugins need to be updated …
In addition to providing information about which plugins have updates available, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin download sites and gives you the option to update the plugin with one-click …
Let’s start by learning how to upgrade one WP plugin at a time.
How To Upgrade Individual A Plugin
We strongly recommend performing a backup of your site files and database before upgrading your website.
In your admin menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” section. This table of plugins can be quite lengthy depending on the number of plugins you have installed in your site …
(WordPress Plugins Screen)
Notes:
If you have too many plugins installed and would like to reduce the number of plugins showing on the 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 page), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
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 “Search” feature …
You will see information about plugins in different color backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (active vs. inactive and up-to-date vs. out-of-date) …
Plugins that require upgrading have a distinctive 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 has done away with the loading screen when updating plugins and streamlined the process, so that the process of updating your plugins takes place with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat the above process for any other plugins on your site that need updating, or refer to the section below if you have many 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 upgrade individual plugins, let’s show you how to bulk-upgrade WordPress plugins.
How To Update Several 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 …
Tick the checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to update by checking its box …
In the Bulk Actions dropdown menu above the table of plugins, choose Update …
Click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will update all at once …
After your plugins have all been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to the Plugins area, or select another option from the sidebar menu …
Once your plugins are all up-to-date, the update reminders disappear (i.e. the “at-a-glance” indicators and “There is a new version of XYZ plugin available” notices no longer display on your screen, toolbar and menus) …
All plugins have now been upgraded!
(When your site uses the latest version of all plugins, the notification icons no longer appear)
Now that you know how to update your plugins, it’s time to learn how to safely delete plugins from your site or blog.
How To Safely Delete Plugins
As part of good WordPress management practice, it’s a good idea to uninstall inactive plugins. This reduces resources on your server and also will help you avoid problems.
In this section, we show you how to remove unused plugins from your site or blog.
Always create 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 reinstall your site.
To remove a plugin, go to your admin menu and select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins screen, locate the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is deactivated.
Hint: Inactive plugins use a different colored background than active plugins and show an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, click on Deactivate before continuing with your plugin deletion …
Click Delete …
If you need 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” screen …
All files belonging to the plugin that you are about to delete will be listed on your screen …
If you are sure about going ahead and deleting the selected plugin, then click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugins and related files will be removed from your WordPress installation …
How To Safely Delete Multiple Plugins In Bulk
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins on your site, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be cleared.
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) …
Next, specify Deactivate from the Bulk Actions drop-down menu …
Click Apply …
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 …
Tick the checkbox in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to delete by checking its box …
Once you have selected all of the plugins that you want deleted, specify Delete from the Bulk Actions drop 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 sure that you would like to proceed to the next step and delete all of the plugins listed …
The plugins will be deleted …
Useful Management Tools For WP Plugins
As well as the methods shown above, you can use a range of tools to 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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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now