In another article, we explain what plugins are and how you can use plugins to easily increase your site’s functionality.
To read the article, go here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn why plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to update and delete plugins, and discover some great plugin management tips.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Plugins Need To Be Upgraded
New WordPress versions are regularly released (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in previous software releases, and to improve existing features or introduce new ones.
Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, you can expect to see at least some new updates for plugins when new versions of WordPress are released.
The reason for this, is because most WordPress plugins are created by external developers, so sometimes features in the newly-released WordPress version conflict with plugins that were developed for a previous version. Whenever this happens, problems can sometimes occur.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are very 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 on your end, is maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is really simple, quick and easy to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins regularly updated and deleting old plugins you no longer use is part of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid any potential errors or conflicts.
The WordPress tutorial below explains how to automatically upgrade and delete plugins without requiring web coding skills.
Upgrading And Deleting WordPress Plugins Safely Inside The Dashboard – Tutorial
WordPress has a number of different ways to alert users when plugins need updating.
For example, you can see ‘at a glance’ how many plugins need to be updated from your WordPress Dashboard just by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, nine WordPress plugins need to be updated …
You can also see how many plugins need to be updated from your WordPress Administration Toolbar (as shown below, nine plugins should be updated) …
The Plugins screen (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also provides information about plugins that need to be updated …
As well as providing information about which plugins have updates available, the Plugins screen provides links to the plugin developer sites and gives you the option to update the plugin with one-click …
Let’s start by learning how to upgrade one plugin at a time.
Updating Single Plugins
Always make a backup of your site files and database before updating your blog or website.
In your WP admin menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” page. The list of plugins can run down your screen for some length, depending on the number of plugins you have added to your site …
(Plugins Screen)
Useful Info:
If you have too many plugins installed 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 enter a smaller number of items per page (by default, all plugins display on the screen), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
Your Plugins area 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” feature …
You will see plugin information in different color backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (active vs. inactive and up-to-date vs. outdated) …
Plugins that require updating display the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin] available” …
Locate the plugin that needs updating and click on the update now link …
WordPress has done away with the loading screen when updating plugins and streamlined the plugin update process, so that updating your plugins takes place with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat this process for all plugins on your site that need updating, or see the section below if you have a number of plugins that are out-of-date and would like to upgrade them all in one simple operation.
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Now that you know how to upgrade individual plugins, it’s time to learn how to bulk-update plugins.
Bulk-Updating WP Plugins
To upgrade multiple plugins at the same time 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 check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to upgrade by checking its box …
In the Bulk Actions drop-down menu at the top of the page, select Update …
And then click Apply …
Your selected plugins will begin the update process …
After all plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to your Plugins area, or visit another section of your dashboard …
Once your plugins are all up-to-date, any plugin alerts disappear (i.e. the “at-a-glance” indicators and “There is a new version of XYZ plugin available” notices no longer display) …
All plugins have now been upgraded!
(When your plugins are all up-to-date, notification icons disappear)
Now that you know how to upgrade in your admin dashboard, let’s take a look at how to delete plugins safely from your WordPress blog or website.
How To Safely Delete WP Plugins
At times, you may decide to remove plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This helps to decrease resources on your server and eliminate causes of some problems.
In this section, we show you how to safely delete unused plugins from your site.
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 main menu and choose Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins page, find the plugin you want to remove 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 …
Next, click on Delete …
If you want to have a look at all the files that will be deleted before taking 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 belonging to the plugin that you are about to delete will display on your screen …
If you are absolutely certain that you would like to go ahead and delete these plugin, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugin(s) will be removed from your server …
How To Safely Bulk-Delete Plugins
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins on your site, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be removed.
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 check box, 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, 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” page 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 selected all of the plugins that you want deleted, specify Delete from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click Apply …
A list of all selected plugins will be displayed 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 sure that you want to proceed to the next step and remove all of the selected plugins …
Your plugins will be deleted …
Management Tools For WP Plugins
In addition to the methods shown above, you can use WordPress plugins 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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