In another article, we provide a detailed explanation of what WordPress plugins are about and how you can use these to increase your web site’s functionality.
You can read this article here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn why plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to automatically update and uninstall your WordPress plugins, and discover useful plugin management tools.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Many Of Your WordPress Plugins Need Updating
WordPress regularly updates its software (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in previous versions, and to improve existing features or introduce new functionality to users.
Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, there will typically be new new update notifications for WordPress plugins every.
The reason for this, is because most plugins for WordPress are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes code in the newly-released WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were developed and tested with a previous version. Whenever 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 making sure that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if this is needed). All you have to do on your end, is just keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is really simple to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins regularly updated and deleting old plugins you no longer need is an essential aspect of good WordPress management and helps to avoid any potential errors or conflicts.
The WordPress step-by-step tutorial below explains how to automatically update and delete plugins safely in WordPress without requiring coding skills or knowledge.
How To Automatically Update And Delete Plugins Safely From The WordPress Dashboard – Tutorial
WordPress provides several methods to notify users when plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can see how many plugins need updating inside your Administration site simply by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
In the example below, you can see that 9 WordPress plugins need to be updated …
You can also tell how many plugins need updating from your WordPress Admin Toolbar (as shown below, several plugins require updating) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also provides information about plugins that need to be updated …
As well as providing information about which plugins have updates available, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin download pages and gives you the option to update the plugins instantly …
Let’s start by learning how to upgrade WordPress plugins one at a time.
Update Single Plugins
Always make a complete backup of your website before upgrading your website.
From your WP admin menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” screen will display in your browser. The screen can be quite lengthy depending on the number of plugins you have added to your site …
(The WordPress Plugins Screen)
Useful Information:
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 page and enter a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show up on the page by default, i.e. “999”), then click Apply …
Your Plugins area will now be reduced in size with a pagination feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Search Installed Plugins” feature …
WordPress displays information about plugins in different backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (inactive vs. active and out-of-date vs up-to-date) …
Plugins in need of updating display the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Insert Plugin Name] available” …
Select the plugin that needs updating and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides smooth & fast plugin updates, so that the process of updating your plugins happens “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat the above process for any other 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 all plugins in bulk.
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Now that you know how to update plugins individually, let’s show you how to update several plugins simultaneously.
Bulk-Upgrading WordPress Plugins
To update multiple WP plugins in one go directly inside your dashboard, go to the “Plugins” screen and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Tick the checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to update by checking its box …
In the Bulk Actions dropdown menu above the table of plugins, choose Update …
And then click Apply …
Your selected plugins will begin the update process …
After the update process has been completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to the Plugins screen, or choose another option from the WP dashboard menu …
Once your plugins are all up-to-date, the plugin notifications disappear (i.e. the “at-a-glance” indicators and “There is a new version of XYZ plugin available” notices no longer display on your screen, toolbar and menus) …
You have updated all plugins on your site!
(When plugins on your site are up-to-date, the notification icons do not display)
Now that you know how to automatically upgrade plugins, it’s time to learn how to uninstall plugins safely from your WordPress site.
Deleting Plugins
It’s a good idea to remove plugins that you no longer use. This helps to reduce resources on your server and also helps to eliminate potential problems.
In this section, we show you how to deactivate and delete unused plugins from your site or blog.
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 restore your site.
To delete a plugin, go to your WP admin menu and choose Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins screen, locate the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is deactivated.
Hint: Inactive plugins use a different background color 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 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 …
A complete list of files belonging to the plugin that you are about to remove will display on your screen …
If you are positively certain that you want to proceed and delete the selected plugin, then click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugins and related files will be removed from your WordPress installation …
How To Safely Delete Several Plugins In Bulk
You can delete all inactive plugins at once, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be uninstalled.
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 check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …
Next, select Deactivate from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click Apply …
The selected plugins will be deactivated …
To delete all or some of the inactive plugins, go to the “Plugins” area and click on the Inactive link on the main menu …
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 selected all of the plugins that you want to delete, select Delete from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click the Apply button …
A list of all selected plugins will be displayed 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 absolutely certain that you would like to proceed to the next step and delete all of the plugins listed …
The selected plugins will be deleted …
WordPress Tools For Managing Plugins
As well as the methods shown above, you can install a number of tools that let 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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