In another article, we explain what plugins are and how you can use plugins to easily extend your website’s functionality.
To view this article, go here:
In this tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping all plugins up-to-date, how to safely upgrade and delete plugins, and practical plugin management tips if you need to manage multiple WordPress sites.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Some Of Your Plugins Need Regular Upgrading
New WordPress versions are constantly being released (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in older software releases, and to improve existing features or introduce new ones.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, there will typically be new new update notices for plugins every.
This is because most WordPress plugins are created by external developers, so sometimes features in the new WordPress version conflict with plugins that were developed and tested with a previous version. When this happens, there is a potential for conflicts to sometimes develop.
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 updating is required). All you have to do as a WordPress user, is maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is very easy and simple to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date and deleting old plugins you no longer need is part of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid any conflicts and errors.
The WordPress step-by-step tutorial below explains how to update and delete plugins safely without requiring coding knowledge.
Upgrading And Deleting Plugins – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress provides a few methods to let users know when plugins need updating.
For example, you can immediately see how many plugins are out-of-date from your Administration panel just by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
In the example below, 9 plugins are out of date and need updating …
You can also check how many plugins need to be updated from your WordPress Admin Toolbar (the screenshot below shows that several plugins have to be updated) …
The Plugins screen (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also provides information about plugins that need updating …
As well as providing information about which plugins have available updates, the Plugins page provides links to the plugin download pages and gives you the option to update your plugin instantly …
Let’s start by showing you how to upgrade plugins individually.
Upgrade Plugins One At A Time
Always make a backup of your data and files before updating your website or blog.
In your main menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” screen will display in your browser. This list of plugins can be quite long depending on the number of plugins you have installed on your site …
(The WordPress Plugins Page)
Additional Information:
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 area and type in a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show up on the screen by default), then click Apply …
Your Plugins section 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 “Plugin Search” 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 display the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin Name] available” …
Select the plugin that needs updating and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides smoother plugin updates, 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 many plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update all plugins in bulk.
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Now that you know how to update WordPress plugins one at a time, the next step is to learn how to upgrade multiple WP plugins simultaneously.
Bulk-Upgrading Plugins
To bulk-update WordPress plugins using the automatic updating feature, go to the “Plugins” section 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 update by checking its box …
In the Bulk Actions drop down menu above the list of plugins, choose Update …
Click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will begin the update process …
After all upgrades are done, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to your Plugins section, or choose another section of your dashboard …
Once your plugins are all 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 on your screen, toolbar and menus) …
You have updated all plugins on your site to their latest version!
(When plugins on your site are all up-to-date, notification icons no longer appear)
Now that you know how to automatically upgrade WP in your dashboard, let’s take a look at how to safely remove plugins from your WordPress blog or website.
Deleting Plugins
It’s a good idea to uninstall plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This conserves server resources and help to reduce causes of problems.
In this section, we show you how to safely deactivate and delete 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 area, find the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is inactive.
Hint: Inactive plugins are listed in 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 proceeding …
Click on Delete …
If you would like 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” section …
All files associated with the plugin selected for deletionwill display on your screen …
If you are positively sure that you want to go ahead and delete the selected plugin files, then click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugin(s) will be removed from your WordPress installation …
How To Bulk-Delete WP Plugins
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins on your site, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be deleted.
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 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 drop-down menu …
Click Apply …
Your 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 …
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 deleted, choose Delete from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click Apply …
A list of all selected plugins will be displayed 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 want to proceed to the next step and delete all of the selected plugins …
The plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Management Tools For WP Plugins
As well as the methods shown above, you can use a range of third-party tools that let you 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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"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