In a previous blog post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use plugins to easily add new features to your website with no technical skills required.
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 easily upgrade and uninstall your WordPress plugins, and discover some great plugin management tips if you need to run multiple WordPress sites or blogs.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Many Of Your WordPress Plugins Need To Be Updated
WordPress frequently updates its software (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in earlier software versions, and to improve existing features or introduce new functionality to users.
Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, you can expect to see at least some new new update notifications for plugins every.
The reason for this, is because most plugins for WordPress are created by third-party developers, so sometimes the code in the newly-released WordPress version conflict with plugins that were developed for a previous version. When this happens, issues can sometimes develop.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are quite proactive when it comes to making sure 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 learn, is very simple to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date and removing old plugins you no longer need is part of good WordPress management and helps to avoid any errors and problems.
The WordPress tutorial below explains how to update and delete plugins safely without requiring coding skills.
Upgrading And Deleting Plugins In WordPress – Tutorial
WordPress uses several methods of letting users know when plugins on their blog need updating.
For example, you can immediately see how many plugins are out-of-date as soon as you log into your WordPress Dashboard just by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, 9 plugins have older versions that need to be updated …
You can also tell how many plugins need to be updated from your WP Admin Toolbar (as shown below, several plugins need updating) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also lets you know which plugins need to be updated …
As well as providing information about which plugins have available updates, the Plugins screen provides links to the plugin developer sites and gives you the option to update the plugins with one-click …
Let’s start by learning how to update plugins individually.
Upgrading Single Plugins
Always make a backup of your site files and database before updating your website or blog.
From your main menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” area will display in your browser. This page can be quite long depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site …
(WordPress Plugins Screen)
Useful 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 screen and type in a smaller number of items per page (by default, all plugins display on the screen), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
Your Plugins page 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 “Search” field …
WordPress displays information about plugins in different backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (active vs. inactive and up-to-date vs. outdated) …
Plugins in need of upgrading have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [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 process, so that the process of 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 updating, or see the section below if you have many plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update them all at once.
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Now that you know how to upgrade individual WordPress plugins, it’s time to learn how to bulk-upgrade WP plugins.
Bulk-Updating Plugins
To bulk-update plugins using the automatic upgrade feature, go to the “Plugins” page 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 upgrade by checking their individual boxes …
In the Bulk Actions dropdown menu above the table of plugins, select Update …
Click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will automatically begin to update …
After 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 a different 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” messages no longer display) …
All plugins are now up-to-date!
(When plugins on your site are up-to-date, the notification icons do not display)
Now that you know how to update WordPress in your admin dashboard, it’s time to learn how to uninstall plugins from your site.
How To Safely Delete WP Plugins
Occasionally, you may choose to remove WordPress plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This helps to conserve resources on your server and also eliminate causes of problems.
In this section, you will learn how to 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 restore your site.
To delete a plugin, go to your dashboard menu and choose Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins page, 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 show an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, then click on Deactivate before proceeding with your plugin deletion …
Next, click on Delete …
If you would like to browse all the files that will be deleted before taking the next step, then click on the “Click to view entire list of files which will be deleted” link in the “Delete Plugin” section …
All files belonging to the plugin selected for deletionwill be listed on your screen …
If you are positively certain 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 …
How To Safely Delete Several WP Plugins Simultaneously
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be uninstalled.
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, select Deactivate from the Bulk Actions pull-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 …
Select all of the plugins you want to delete by either placing a tick next to their check box, or click on the check box next to the Plugin column header to select and delete all inactive plugins …
Once you have ticked all the checkboxes next to the plugins that you want deleted, select Delete from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click the Apply button …
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 absolutely sure that you would like to proceed to the next step and remove all of the plugins listed …
Your plugins will be deleted …
Managing WordPress Plugins – Useful WordPress Tools
As well as the methods shown above, you can use a range of tools that help you 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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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)