In a separate blog post, we provide a detailed explanation of what plugins are all about and how you can use these to easily extend your blog’s functionality.
To view this article, go here:
In this tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date, how to safely update and remove plugins from your site, and discover practical tools to help you better manage your plugins if you currently own or manage multiple WordPress sites.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why WordPress Plugins Need To Be Upgraded
WordPress frequently updates its software (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in earlier releases, and to improve existing features.
Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, there will typically be new updates for plugins when new versions of WordPress are released.
This is because most WordPress plugins are created by external developers, so sometimes the code in the newly-released WordPress version conflict with plugins that were built for a previous version. Whenever this happens, there is a potential for issues to sometimes develop.
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 simply maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, 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 management and helps to avoid potential errors or conflicts.
The WordPress tutorial below explains how to update and delete plugins without requiring web coding or programming skills.
How To Automatically Update And Delete Plugins – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress employs a few ways to notify users when plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can instantly see how many plugins are out-of-date from your Administration panel just by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
In the screenshot below, you can see that 9 WP plugins have older versions that need updating …
You can also tell how many plugins need updating from your WP Toolbar (the screenshot below shows that a number of plugins need to be updated) …
The Plugins screen (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also lets you know which plugins need to be updated …
In addition to providing information about plugins that have available updates, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin download pages and gives you the option to update your plugins individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by showing you how to update plugins one at a time.
Update Individual A Plugin
We strongly recommend performing a complete backup of your data and files before updating your website.
From your WP admin menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” screen. The list of plugins can flow down your page for some length, depending on the number of plugins you have installed on your blog …
(Plugins Screen)
Additional Info:
If you have too many plugins and would like to reduce the number of plugins showing on your screen, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins page and type in a smaller number of items per page (by default, all plugins display on the screen), then click Apply …
Your Plugins page 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” function …
You will see information about plugins in different color backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (inactive vs. active and up-to-date vs. outdated) …
Plugins that require updating show the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin Name] available” …
Locate the plugin that needs to be updated and click on the update now link …
WordPress has done away with the loading screen when updating plugins and streamlined the process, so that updating your plugins takes place with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat the above process for all plugins on your site that need to be updated, or see the section below if you have a number of plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update them all at the same time.
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Now that you know how to upgrade individual WordPress plugins, the next step is to learn how to upgrade a bunch of plugins simultaneously.
How To Update Several WordPress Plugins Simultaneously
To bulk-update WP plugins simultaneously directly inside your dashboard, go to the “Plugins” section and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Click the checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to upgrade by checking their individual boxes …
In the Bulk Actions pull-down menu above your plugin table, choose Update …
Click Apply …
Your selected plugins will begin updating …
Once your plugins have all been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to your Plugins section, or select another section of your dashboard …
Once all plugins are 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) …
All plugins are now up-to-date!
(When plugins on your site are all up-to-date, update alerts no longer show)
Now that you know how to automatically update your plugins, it’s time to learn how to remove plugins from your blog or website.
How To Safely Delete Plugins
It’s a good idea to delete plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This helps to decrease resources on your server and eliminate problems.
In this section, we show you how to remove unused plugins from your WordPress blog or site.
We strongly recommend creating a full back up of your WordPress site before installing, upgrading or deleting plugins, in case something goes wrong and you need to recover data or reinstall your site.
To delete a plugin, go to your dashboard menu and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins section, locate the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is inactive.
Hint: Inactive plugins appear in a different background color than active plugins and show an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, click on Deactivate before proceeding …
Click Delete …
If you need to review a list of 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 …
All files belonging to the plugin that you are about to remove will display on your screen …
If you are absolutely sure about going ahead and deleting the selected plugin files, just click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugin(s) will be deleted …
Deleting Several WordPress Plugins At Once
You can delete all inactive plugins at once, 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 checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …
Next, select Deactivate from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click the Apply button …
Your 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 …
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 selected all the plugins that you want to delete, select Delete from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click Apply …
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 sure that you would like to proceed to the next step and remove all of the plugins listed …
All selected plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Managing WP Plugins – Useful WordPress Tools
As well as the methods shown above, you can install WordPress plugins that help 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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