In a separate article, we provide an overview of what WP plugins are about and how you can use plugins to add new features to your blog with no coding knowledge required.
You can read this article here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn why WordPress plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to safely update and delete plugins, and some great plugin management tools if you plan to manage multiple WordPress sites or blogs.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Many WordPress Plugins Need To Be Upgraded
WordPress constantly updates its software (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in older software releases, as well as to improve existing features or introduce new functionality to WordPress users.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, you can expect to see at least some new updates for WordPress plugins every.
This is because most WordPress plugins are created by third-party developers, so sometimes code or features in the newly-released WordPress version conflict with plugins that were created and tested to work with a previous version. Whenever this happens, problems can 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 this is needed). All you need to do as a website owner, is just maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is very simple and easy to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins regularly updated and deleting old plugins you no longer need is part of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid problems or errors.
The tutorial below explains how to automatically update and delete plugins from the dashboard without requiring web coding skills or knowledge.
Upgrading And Deleting Plugins – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress employs several methods of letting you know when your plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can immediately see how many plugins are out-of-date as soon as you log into your Administration panel by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
In the example below, 9 WP plugins need updating …
You can also tell how many plugins need to be updated from your WordPress Toolbar (the example below shows how many plugins should be brought up to date) …
The Plugins page (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you which plugins need to be updated …
In addition to providing information about plugins that have updates available, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin download sites and gives you the option to update your plugin with one-click …
Let’s start by learning how to upgrade plugins one at a time.
How To Update WordPress Plugins Individually
Always make a complete backup of your site files and database before updating your website.
From your WP admin menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” page. The list of plugins can go down your page for some length, depending on how many plugins you have installed on your blog …
(Plugins Page)
Additional Information:
If you have too many plugins and would like to reduce the number of plugins displaying on your screen, 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 area will now be made more manageable with a pagination feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Plugin Search” function …
You will see plugin information in different backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (inactive vs. active and up-to-date vs. outdated) …
Plugins in need of upgrading show the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin Name] available” …
Find the plugin that you want to update 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 the process of updating your plugins takes place “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat this 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 upgrade all plugins at the same time.
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Now that you know how to update individual plugins, the next step is to learn how to bulk-upgrade WP plugins.
How To Update Several Plugins
To bulk-upgrade plugins simultaneously directly inside your dashboard, go to the “Plugins” page and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Click on 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 pull-down menu above the table of plugins, select Update …
And then click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will begin updating …
After your plugins have all been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to your Plugins section, or visit a different section of your dashboard …
Once all plugins are 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 to their latest version!
(When your site or blog uses the latest version of all plugins, the notification icons do not display)
Now that you know how to automatically upgrade inside your WP dashboard, let’s take a look at how to delete plugins from your site or blog.
Deleting Plugins
At times, you may decide to remove WP plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This helps to reduce resources on your server and help to reduce problems.
In this section, you will learn how to safely delete unused plugins from your WordPress blog or site.
We strongly recommend creating 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 delete a plugin, go to your main menu and choose Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins screen, find 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 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 Delete …
If you want to have a look at all the files that will be deleted before going ahead, then click on the “Click to view entire list of files which will be deleted” link in the “Delete Plugin” screen …
The entire list of files belonging to the plugin that you are about to delete will display on your screen …
If you are absolutely certain about going ahead and deleting the plugin, just click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugin(s) will be removed from your server …
How To Safely Bulk-Delete Plugins
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 presently active, your will 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 checkbox, or selecting the check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …
Next, choose Deactivate from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click the Apply button …
The selected plugins will be deactivated …
To delete all or some of the inactive plugins on your site, go to the “Plugins” area and click on the Inactive link in the Plugins menu …
Click on the check box in 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 ticked all the check boxes next to the plugins that you want to delete, choose Delete from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click Apply …
A list of all selected plugins will show up 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 would like to go ahead and delete all of the plugins listed …
Your plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Plugin Management – WordPress Tools
In addition to the methods shown above, you can use a range of tools to 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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