In another article, we provide an overview of what plugins are about and how you can use these to easily add new features to your website or blog without editing code.
You can view the article here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date, how to update and delete your WordPress plugins, and practical plugin management tips.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Your WordPress Plugins Need Upgrading
The WordPress software is regularly updated (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in older releases, and to improve existing features.
Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, there will typically be new new update notices for WordPress plugins every.
The reason for this, is because most plugins for WordPress are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes code or features in the new WordPress version conflict with plugins that were developed and tested with a previous version. Whenever this happens, there is a potential for conflicts to sometimes occur.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are quite proactive when it comes to ensuring that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if needed). All you have to do on your end, is keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is very easy and simple to do.
Keeping your plugins up-to-date and removing old plugins you no longer use is an essential aspect of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid potential errors or problems.
The tutorial below explains how to update and delete plugins from the dashboard with no web programming knowledge needed.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins In Your Dashboard – Tutorial
WordPress utilizes a number of different ways to let users know when plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can tell immediately how many plugins are out-of-date as soon as you log into your Administration area by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
In the example below, you can see that 9 plugins need updating …
You can also tell how many plugins need updating from your WP Admin Toolbar (the example below shows that a number of plugins require updating) …
The Plugins screen (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you how many plugins need updating …
In addition to providing information about which plugins have available updates, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin developer sites and gives you the option to update the plugin instantly …
Let’s start by showing you how to upgrade one WP plugin at a time.
Upgrade Individual WordPress Plugins
We recommend performing a full backup of your data and files before upgrading your website.
From your admin menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” section will display in your browser. The table of plugins can be quite lengthy depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site …
(WordPress Plugins Page)
Additional Info:
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 screen and enter a smaller number of items per page (by default, all plugins display on the page), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
Your Plugins page 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 “Search” field …
WordPress displays plugin information in different color backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (inactive vs. active and outdated vs up-to-date) …
Plugins that need upgrading show the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Insert Plugin Name] available” …
Select the plugin that you want to update and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides simple plugin updating, so that 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 to be updated, or see the section below if you have several 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 one WordPress plugin at a time, let’s show you how to bulk-upgrade plugins.
Bulk-Upgrading WP Plugins
To upgrade multiple plugins simultaneously directly inside your dashboard, go to the “Plugins” section and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Tick the check box in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to update by checking its box …
In the Bulk Actions pull-down menu at the top of the page, select Update …
And then click Apply …
Your selected plugins will automatically begin to update …
Once all updates have been completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to your Plugins area, or select another option from the admin 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” messages no longer display on your screen, toolbar and menus) …
All plugins are now up-to-date!
(When your site or blog uses the latest version of all plugins, update notices disappear)
Now that you know how to upgrade your in the WP dashboard, let’s show you how to safely remove plugins from your WordPress blog or website.
Deleting WP Plugins
At times, you may want to remove plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This reduces resources on your server and helps to eliminate causes of some problems.
In this section, you will learn how to safely remove unused plugins from your site or blog.
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 section, find the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is deactivated.
Hint: Inactive plugins are listed 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 going any further …
Once you have deactivated the plugin, click Delete …
If you would like to browse 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” section …
All files associated with the plugin selected for deletionwill display on your screen …
If you are certain about going ahead and deleting the selected plugin files, just click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugins and related files will be deleted …
How To Safely Delete Multiple Plugins Simultaneously
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 presently 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 check box, or selecting the checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …
Next, specify Deactivate from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click the Apply button …
The 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 …
Click the checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to delete by checking its box …
Once you have ticked all the checkboxes next to the plugins that you want deleted, choose Delete from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click the Apply button …
A list of all selected plugins will show up 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 sure that you would like to proceed to the next step and remove all of the plugins listed …
Your selected plugins will be deleted …
Tools For Managing WordPress Plugins
As well as the methods shown above, you can use 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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