In a previous post, we provide a detailed explanation of what plugins are about and how you can use these to add new features and functionality to your web site with no technical skills required.
You can view the article here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn why WordPress plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to easily upgrade and remove plugins from your site, and some tools to help you better manage your plugins if you need to run or manage multiple WordPress sites or blogs.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Some Plugins Need To Be Frequently Upgraded
New versions of WordPress are regularly released (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in earlier software versions, and to improve existing features.
Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, there will typically be new updates for WordPress plugins every.
This is because most WordPress plugins are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes code or features in the newly-released WordPress version conflict with plugins that were developed and tested with a previous version. Whenever this happens, problems can sometimes occur.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are fairly proactive when it comes to ensuring that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if required). All you need to do on your end, is simply keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is very simple and easy to do.
Keeping your plugins regularly updated and deleting old plugins you no longer need is part of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid any potential errors or problems.
The WordPress tutorial below explains how to update and delete WordPress plugins safely with no web programming skills or knowledge needed.
How To Update And Delete Plugins Safely – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress uses a number of different methods to let you know when plugins on your site need updating.
For example, you can see ‘at a glance’ how many plugins need to be updated as soon as you log into your Administration area just by looking at the “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In the screenshot below, you can see that 9 WordPress plugins are out of date and need to be updated …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 check how many plugins need to be updated from your WordPress Administration Toolbar (in the example below, you can again see that nine plugins should be updated) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also lets you know which plugins need updating …
As well as 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 the plugins instantly …
Let’s start by showing you how to upgrade plugins individually.
Upgrade Plugins One At A Time
We strongly recommend performing a full backup of your website before making any changes to your website.
From your dashboard menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” page will display in your browser. The table of plugins can go down your page for a while, depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site …
(WordPress Plugins Screen)
Additional Info:
If you have too many plugins installed and would like to make this section more manageable, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins screen and type in a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show on the screen by default, i.e. “999”), then click Apply …
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 “Search Plugins” feature …
WordPress displays 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 need upgrading have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Insert Plugin Name] available” …
Find 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 plugin updating process, so that the process of updating your plugins happens with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat the above process for all 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 upgrade them all at the same time.
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Now that you know how to upgrade one WP plugin at a time, let’s show you how to bulk-upgrade WordPress plugins.
Bulk-Updating WP Plugins
To update multiple plugins in a single operation 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 …
Click the check box in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to update by checking their individual boxes …
In the Bulk Actions drop down menu above the plugin list, select Update …
And then click Apply …
Your selected plugins will update all at once …
Once all plugin updates are finished, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to your Plugins section, or choose another option from the WordPress dashboard menu …
Once all plugins are up-to-date, any plugin alerts disappear (i.e. the “at-a-glance” indicators and “There is a new version of XYZ plugin available” messages no longer display) …
All plugins have now been upgraded!
(When your plugins are up-to-date, the notification icons disappear)
Now that you know how to update inside your WP dashboard, let’s take a look at how to uninstall plugins safely from your WordPress site.
Deleting WordPress Plugins
As part of good WordPress site management practice, it’s a good idea to uninstall plugins that you no longer require. This can help conserve server resources and eliminate causes of problems.
In this section, we show you how to safely uninstall unused plugins from your WordPress 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 remove a plugin, go to your admin menu and choose Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins area, 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, then click on Deactivate before continuing with your plugin deletion …
Next, click on Delete …
If you need to have a look at all the files that will be deleted before proceeding, then click on the “Click to view entire list of files which will be deleted” link in the “Delete Plugin” page …
A complete list of files belonging to the plugin selected for removalwill be listed on your screen …
If you are positively sure that you want to go ahead and delete the plugin, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugin(s) will be deleted …
How To Safely 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 currently 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 drop down menu …
Click Apply …
Your 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 on the main menu …
Click the checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to delete by checking their individual boxes …
Once you have ticked all the check boxes next to the plugins that you want deleted, specify Delete from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click Apply …
A list of all selected plugins will display 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 would like to proceed to the next step and remove all of the selected plugins …
Your selected plugins will be deleted …
Managing Plugins
In addition to the methods shown above, you can use a number 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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