In another article, we explain what plugins are and how you can use these to easily enhance your blog’s capabilities.
To read the article, go here:
In this tutorial you will learn why WordPress plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to easily update and remove your WordPress plugins, and some great tools to help you better manage your plugins.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why WordPress Plugins Need To Be Regularly Upgraded
New WordPress versions are constantly being released (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in older software versions, as well as 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 notices for plugins whenever WordPress releases a new version.
The reason for this, is because most WordPress plugins are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes code in the newly-released WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were created and tested to work with a previous version. Whenever this happens, conflicts 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 required). All you have to do on your end, is maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is really easy to do.
Keeping your plugins regularly updated and deleting old plugins you no longer use is an essential aspect of good WordPress management and helps to avoid any potential problems or errors.
The WordPress tutorial below explains how to update and delete plugins in WordPress without editing web code.
Upgrading And Deleting Plugins Safely – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress has several ways to let you know when your plugins need updating.
For example, you can see ‘at a glance’ how many plugins are out-of-date as soon as you log into your Administration area simply by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, nine plugins have older versions that need to be updated …
You can also see how many plugins need updating from your WP Admin Toolbar (as shown below, nine plugins should be brought up to date) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you what plugins need updating …
As well as providing information about plugins that have available updates, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin developer sites and gives you the option to update your plugins instantly …
Let’s start by learning how to upgrade one plugin at a time.
Updating Plugins One At A Time
We recommend making a backup of your site files and database before updating your blog or website.
In your WP admin menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” section will display in your browser. This screen can be quite long depending on how many plugins you have installed on your blog …
(Plugins Page)
Useful Information:
If you have too many plugins and would like to reduce the number of plugins displayed on the page, 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 on the screen by default), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
Your Plugins section 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” field …
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 that require upgrading have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin Name] available” …
Select 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 update process, so that the process of updating your plugins happens “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat this 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 all plugins in bulk.
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Now that you know how to upgrade WP plugins individually, the next step is to learn how to bulk-update WordPress plugins.
Bulk-Upgrading Plugins
To bulk-update plugins from your admin area, go to the “Plugins” screen 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 each plugin you want to update by checking its box …
In the Bulk Actions drop down menu above the plugin list, choose Update …
And then click Apply …
Your selected plugins will begin updating …
After all updates have completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to the Plugins section, or visit 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 on your screen, toolbar and menus) …
You have updated all plugins on your site to their latest version!
(When your site or blog uses the latest version of all plugins, notification icons disappear)
Now that you know how to automatically upgrade your in your dashboard, it’s time to learn how to delete plugins safely from your WordPress site or blog.
Deleting WP Plugins
At times, you may want to remove plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This can conserve resource usage and also eliminate potential problems.
In this section, you will learn how to uninstall unused plugins from your WordPress 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 remove a plugin, go to your admin menu and select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins section, find the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is inactive.
Hint: Inactive plugins use a different colored background than active plugins and display an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, click on Deactivate before continuing …
Click on Delete …
If you need to review a list of 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” page …
A complete list of files belonging to the plugin selected for deletionwill be listed on your screen …
If you are certain about going ahead and deleting the plugin, then click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugin(s) will be deleted …
Bulk-Deleting Plugins
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins on your site, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be deleted.
Note: To delete any plugins that are currently 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 checkbox, or selecting the check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …
Once you have done this, choose 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” page and click on the Inactive link in the Plugins menu …
Select all of the plugins you want to delete by either placing a tick next to their check box, or click on the checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select and delete all inactive plugins …
Once you have ticked all the check boxes next to the plugins that you want to delete, choose Delete from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click the Apply button …
A list of all selected plugins will be displayed 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 want to proceed to the next step and remove all of the plugins listed …
Your plugins will be deleted …
Practical Management Tools For WP Plugins
In addition to the methods shown above, you can use a range of 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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