In a previous blog post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use plugins to enhance your blog’s capabilities.
To read this article, go here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping all plugins up-to-date, how to safely update and uninstall your WordPress plugins, and useful tips to help you better manage your plugins.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Some Plugins Need Frequent Updating
The WordPress software is constantly updated (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in earlier releases, and to improve existing features or introduce new ones.
Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, you can expect to see at least some new updates for plugins every.
This is because most plugins for WordPress are created by external developers, so sometimes the code in the newly-released WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were built for a previous version. When this happens, there is a potential for issues to 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 required). All you need to do on your end, is just maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is really quick, simple and easy 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 conflicts and errors.
The step-by-step tutorial below explains how to automatically upgrade and delete WordPress plugins in your dashboard without requiring coding skills or knowledge.
Updating And Deleting Plugins Safely Inside Your Dashboard – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress has several ways to let users know when plugins need updating.
For example, you can tell immediately how many plugins need to be updated inside your Site’s Dashboard simply by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
In the screenshot below, you can see that nine WordPress plugins have older versions that need updating …
You can also check how many plugins need updating from your WP Admin Toolbar (in the screenshot below, you can see how many plugins need updating) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you how many plugins need updating …
In addition to providing information about plugins that have available updates, the Plugins page provides links to the plugin download sites and gives you the option to update your plugins with one-click …
Let’s start by learning how to update one WordPress plugin at a time.
Updating WordPress Plugins One At A Time
Always make a complete backup of your website before upgrading your website.
From your dashboard menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” screen will display in your browser. This list of plugins can be quite lengthy depending on how many plugins you have added to your blog …
(Plugins Screen)
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 area and type in a smaller number of items per page (by default, all plugins display on the page), then click Apply …
Your Plugins area 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 Installed Plugins” feature …
You will see plugin information in different color backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (inactive vs. active and up-to-date vs. out-of-date) …
Plugins that need updating have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin Name] available” …
Select the plugin that you want to update and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides streamlined plugin updates, so that updating your plugins takes place “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 several plugins that are out-of-date and would like to upgrade them all in bulk.
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Now that you know how to upgrade individual WP plugins, the next step is to learn how to bulk-update plugins.
How To Bulk-Upgrade Plugins
To update multiple plugins in a single operation from your admin area, 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 each plugin you want to upgrade by checking their individual boxes …
In the Bulk Actions drop down menu at the top of the page, select Update …
And then click Apply …
Your selected plugins will begin updating …
Once all plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to the Plugins screen, or select a different section of your dashboard …
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) …
You have updated all plugins on your site!
(When your site uses the latest version of all plugins, update icons do not display)
Now that you know how to update inside the WP dashboard, let’s take a look at how to uninstall plugins from your WordPress site or blog.
Deleting WordPress Plugins
Occasionally, you may decide to delete WP plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This decreases server resources and will help you avoid problems.
In this section, you will learn how to safely remove 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 delete a plugin, go to your WP admin menu and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins section, find the plugin you want to remove 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, then click on Deactivate before continuing with your plugin deletion …
Next, click Delete …
If you need to have a look at all the files that will be deleted before proceeding any further, 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 that you are about to remove will display on your screen …
If you are absolutely certain that you would like to go ahead and delete the selected plugin, just click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugins and related files will be deleted from your WordPress installation …
Bulk-Deleting WP Plugins
You can delete all inactive plugins at once, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be removed.
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 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 pull-down menu …
Click the Apply button …
The selected plugins will be deactivated …
Once you have deactivated your plugins, click on the Inactive link on the menu at the top of the page …
Click on the check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to delete by checking its box …
Once you have ticked all the check boxes next to the plugins that you want to delete, specify Delete from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click Apply …
A list of all selected plugins will display 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 sure that you want to proceed to the next step and remove all of the plugins listed …
Your plugins will be deleted …
Managing WordPress Plugins
In addition to the methods shown above, you can install a number of 3rd-party 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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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now