In another blog post, we provide a detailed explanation of what plugins are about and how you can use plugins to expand your website’s functionality.
You can view this article here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn why WordPress plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to safely upgrade and uninstall your WordPress plugins, and discover useful tips to help you better manage your plugins.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Some Of Your WordPress Plugins Need Upgrading
New WordPress versions are regularly released (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.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, there will typically be new new update notices for WordPress plugins each time a new version of WordPress is released.
The reason for this, is because most WordPress plugins are created by third-party developers, so sometimes code in the new WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were built for a previous version. When this happens, there is a potential for issues to sometimes develop.
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 required). 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, quick and easy to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins regularly updated and deleting old plugins you no longer use is part of good WordPress management and helps to avoid any potential errors or problems.
The WordPress tutorial below explains how to upgrade and delete plugins from your dashboard without requiring web coding knowledge or skills.
Upgrading And Deleting Plugins Safely In WordPress – Tutorial
WordPress employs several methods to alert you when plugins need updating.
For example, you can see how many plugins need to be updated as soon as you log into your Site’s Dashboard simply by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, nine WP plugins are out of date and need updating …
You can also view how many plugins need updating from your WordPress Admin Toolbar (in the screenshot below, you can again see that nine plugins require updating) …
The Plugins page (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you how many plugins need updating …
In addition to providing information about which plugins have available updates, the Plugins screen provides links to the plugin developer pages and gives you the option to update the plugins with one-click …
Let’s start by showing you how to update WordPress plugins one at a time.
Upgrading Plugins One At A Time
We recommend performing a full backup of your site files and database before updating your blog or website.
From your main menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” area will display in your browser. The table of plugins can be quite lengthy depending on how many plugins you have installed on your blog …
(Plugins Page)
Additional Information:
If you have too many plugins and would like to reduce the number of plugins displayed on the page, 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 screen), then click Apply …
Your Plugins page will now be reduced in size with a pagination feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Search” function …
You will see plugin information in different color backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (inactive vs. active and up-to-date vs. outdated) …
Plugins that need updating display the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin] available” …
Select the plugin that needs updating and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides smooth & simpler plugin updates, so that updating your plugins takes place “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat the above process for any other plugins on your site that need updating, 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 one simple operation.
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Now that you know how to upgrade individual plugins, the next step is to learn how to bulk-update plugins.
How To Update Many Plugins
To update multiple WP plugins in a single operation using the automatic update feature, go to the “Plugins” screen and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Tick the check box in 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 list of plugins, select Update …
And then click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will begin to update automatically …
Once all plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to the Plugins area, or choose another option from the WP dashboard menu …
Once all plugins are up-to-date, the update reminders will disappear (i.e. the “at-a-glance” indicators and “There is a new version of XYZ plugin available” messages no longer display) …
All plugins are now up-to-date!
(When your plugins are all up-to-date, update icons do not display)
Now that you know how to automatically update WordPress in your admin dashboard, let’s show you how to uninstall plugins safely from your WordPress site.
How To Safely Delete WordPress Plugins
At times, you may want to remove plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This helps to reduce resources on your server and also eliminates problems.
In this section, you will learn how to safely deactivate and delete unused plugins from your site.
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 delete a plugin, go to your WP admin menu and choose Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins screen, locate the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is deactivated.
Hint: Inactive plugins appear in a different background color than active plugins and display an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, click on Deactivate before continuing …
Click Delete …
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” section …
The entire list of files belonging to the plugin selected for removalwill be listed on your screen …
If you are sure about going ahead and deleting these plugin files, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugin(s) will be deleted …
How To Bulk-Delete WordPress 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 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 checkbox 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 …
All selected plugins will be deactivated …
Once you have deactivated these plugins, click on the Inactive link on the menu at the top of the page …
Select all of the plugins you want to delete by either placing a tick next to their check box, or click on the checkbox 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 to delete, choose Delete from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click the Apply button …
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 would like to go ahead and remove all of the selected plugins …
Your plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Managing Plugins
In addition to the methods shown above, you can install a number 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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"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum