In another article, we explain what plugins are and how you can use these to expand your web site’s functionality.
To read this article, go here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date, how to safely update and remove plugins, and discover practical tools to help you better manage your plugins if you plan to manage multiple WordPress sites or blogs.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Many Plugins Need Upgrading
New versions of WordPress are regularly released (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in previous versions, and to improve existing features.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, you can expect to see at least some new new update notices for plugins each time a new version of WordPress is made available.
This is because most WordPress plugins are created by third-party developers, so sometimes features in the new WordPress version conflict with plugins that were created and tested to work with a previous version. Whenever this happens, conflicts can sometimes occur.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are fairly proactive when it comes to making sure that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if required). All you have to do as a WordPress user, is simply keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is really simple, quick and easy to do.
Keeping your plugins up-to-date and removing old plugins you no longer use is an essential aspect of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid any potential problems and errors.
The WordPress tutorial below explains how to update and delete plugins inside your dashboard without touching web code.
Updating And Deleting Plugins – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress employs a few methods to let you know when plugins on your blog need updating.
For example, you can instantly see how many plugins need to be updated as soon as you log into your WordPress Dashboard by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
In the example below, you can see that 9 plugins are out of date and need to be updated …
You can also view how many plugins need to be updated from your WP Admin Toolbar (the screenshot below shows that a number of plugins should be brought up to date) …
The Plugins page (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also lets you know which plugins need to be updated …
In addition to providing information about plugins that have updates available, the Plugins screen provides links to the plugin download sites and gives you the option to update the plugin with one-click …
Let’s start by learning how to update individual WordPress plugins.
Update Individual A Plugin
We recommend performing a backup of your website before making any upgrades to your website or blog.
From your WP admin menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” page will display in your browser. The table of plugins can go down your screen for some length, depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site …
(WordPress Plugins Section)
Useful Tips:
If you have too many plugins 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 (by default, all plugins display on the screen), then click Apply …
Your Plugins section will now be made more manageable with a page scrolling feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Plugin Search” function …
WordPress displays plugin information in different color backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (inactive vs. active and up-to-date vs. outdated) …
Plugins that require updating have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Insert Plugin Name] available” …
Find 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 plugin updating process, so that updating your plugins takes place “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat the above process for all 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 them all in bulk.
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Now that you know how to upgrade individual plugins, the next step is to learn how to upgrade multiple WordPress plugins simultaneously.
How To Upgrade Many WordPress Plugins
To bulk-update plugins simultaneously using the automatic updating feature, go to the “Plugins” area and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Tick the checkbox in 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 plugin table, select Update …
Click Apply …
Your selected plugins will automatically begin to update …
After all plugin updates are finished, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to your Plugins section, or choose a different section of your dashboard …
Once your plugins are all up-to-date, any plugin alerts will disappear (i.e. the “at-a-glance” indicators and “There is a new version of XYZ plugin available” messages no longer display) …
You have updated all plugins on your site!
(When plugins on your site are all up-to-date, update messages do not display)
Now that you know how to automatically update WordPress inside the dashboard, let’s take a look at how to uninstall plugins safely from your WordPress site or blog.
How To Safely Delete WordPress Plugins
It’s a good idea to delete plugins that you no longer need. This decreases server resources and also eliminates causes of some problems.
In this section, we show you how to delete unused plugins from your site.
Always create 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 remove a plugin, go to your dashboard menu and choose Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins section, locate the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is deactivated.
Hint: Inactive plugins appear in a different colored background than active plugins and display an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, then click on Deactivate before proceeding …
Next, click on Delete …
If you want 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 …
The entire list of files associated with the plugin selected for removalwill be listed on your screen …
If you are sure about going ahead and deleting the selected plugin files, then click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugin(s) will be deleted from your WordPress installation …
How To Delete Several Plugins Simultaneously
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be cleared.
Note: To delete any plugins that are presently 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 checkbox 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 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 check box in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to delete by checking their individual boxes …
Once you have ticked all the checkboxes next to the plugins that you want to delete, specify Delete from the Bulk Actions drop-down menu …
Click Apply …
A list of all selected plugins will display 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 sure that you want to proceed to the next step and remove all of the selected plugins …
The plugins will be deleted …
Managing WP Plugins – Useful WordPress Tools
In addition to the methods shown above, you can install a range of third-party 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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"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