How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins

Learn how to update and delete WordPress plugins inside your WordPress dashboard…

Upgrading And Deleting WordPress Plugins In Your DashboardIn another article, we explain what plugins are and how you can use plugins to easily increase your blog’s capabilities.

To read this article, go here:

In this tutorial you will learn why plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to safely upgrade and delete plugins from your site, and useful plugin management tips if you manage multiple WordPress sites.

How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins

Why Plugins Need To Be Frequently Upgraded

The WordPress software is constantly updated (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in previous software releases, and to improve existing features or introduce new functionality to users.

Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, you can expect to see at least some new new update notifications for plugins every.

This is because most WordPress plugins are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes code in the new WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were built for a previous version. When this happens, there is a potential for problems to sometimes occur.

Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are very proactive when it comes to making sure that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if this is required). All you need to do as a website owner, is keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is really simple and easy to do.

Important Info

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 potential conflicts and errors.

The step-by-step tutorial below explains how to update and delete plugins safely in your dashboard without coding knowledge or skills required.

Upgrading And Deleting Plugins Safely – Tutorial

WordPress provides several ways to inform users when plugins need to be updated.

For example, you can immediately see how many plugins are out-of-date inside your Administration site by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.

In the example below, you can see that nine WP plugins need updating …

How To Automatically Upgrade And Delete Plugins Safely From The Dashboard

You can also check how many plugins need updating from your WP Toolbar (the screenshot below shows that a number of plugins need updating) …

Updating And Deleting Plugins Safely

The Plugins page (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also lets you know which plugins need to be updated …

Updating And Deleting Plugins Safely In Your Dashboard

In addition to providing information about plugins that have updates available, the Plugins screen provides links to the plugin developer sites and gives you the option to update your plugins instantly …

How To Automatically Update And Delete Plugins In WordPress

Let’s start by showing you how to update individual plugins.

Upgrading WordPress Plugins Individually

Warning

We recommend performing a backup of your data and files before updating your website or blog.

From your admin menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins

Updating And Deleting Plugins Inside Your WordPress Admin Dashboard

You will be taken to the “Plugins” page. The list of plugins can flow down your page for a while, depending on how many plugins you have installed on your blog …

Updating And Deleting Plugins Safely In The WP Dashboard

(The WordPress Plugins Screen)

Practical Tip

Additional Info:

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 (by default, all plugins display on the screen), then click the ‘Apply’ button …

How To Automatically Update And Delete Plugins From The Dashboard

Your Plugins area will now be made more manageable with a page scrolling feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Search” feature …

Updating And Deleting Plugins Safely From Your Dashboard

WordPress displays plugin information in different color backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (inactive vs. active and out-of-date vs up-to-date) …

How To Automatically Upgrade And Delete WordPress Plugins

Plugins that need updating show the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin] available”

Upgrading And Deleting WordPress Plugins In The WordPress Admin Dashboard

Select the plugin that needs updating and click on the update now link …

How To Upgrade And Delete Plugins In WordPress

WordPress provides streamlined plugin updates, so that the process of updating your plugins happens “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins screen …

How To Update And Delete Plugins In WordPress

Repeat this process for all plugins on your site that need to be updated, or refer to the section below if you have several 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.

How To Upgrade Many WP Plugins Simultaneously

To bulk-upgrade WordPress 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 …

How To Automatically Update And Delete Plugins Safely

Click the check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to upgrade by checking their individual boxes …

How To Automatically Upgrade And Delete Plugins Safely In Your WordPress Admin Dashboard

In the Bulk Actions dropdown menu above the table of plugins, choose Update

How To Upgrade And Delete Plugins Safely

And then click Apply

How To Upgrade And Delete Plugins Safely From The WordPress Dashboard

The plugins you have selected will begin updating …

Upgrading And Deleting Plugins Safely From Your Dashboard

After all plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to return to your Plugins area, or visit a different section of your dashboard …

Updating And Deleting WordPress Plugins Safely

Once all plugins are up-to-date, the update reminders will 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) …

How To Automatically Upgrade And Delete Plugins Safely From Your Dashboard

You have updated all plugins on your site!

How To Update And Delete Plugins From Your Dashboard

(When your site or blog uses the latest version of all plugins, notification icons disappear)

Now that you know how to update plugins, let’s show you how to remove plugins safely from your WordPress site or blog.

Deleting WordPress Plugins

As part of smart blog management practice, it’s a good idea to uninstall plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This conserves resources on your server and also help you avoid problems.

In this section, you will learn how to safely remove unused plugins from your WordPress site or blog.

Warning

We strongly recommend creating 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 reinstall your site.

To remove a plugin, go to your dashboard menu and select Plugins > Installed Plugins

Upgrading And Deleting Plugins From The Dashboard

In the Plugins section, locate the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is inactive.

Hint: Inactive plugins have a different colored background than active plugins and display an “Activate” link below the plugin name …

How To Automatically Upgrade And Delete Plugins

If the plugin is active, click on Deactivate before going any further …

Upgrading And Deleting Plugins Safely In WordPress

Next, click on Delete

How To Automatically Update And Delete Plugins Safely

If you need to have a look at 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” section …

How To Automatically Upgrade And Delete Plugins Safely Inside The WordPress Admin Dashboard

The entire list of files associated with the plugin selected for removalwill display on your screen …

How To Update And Delete Plugins Safely

If you are sure that you would like to proceed and delete the selected plugin files, just click on the Yes, Delete these files button …

Upgrading And Deleting Plugins

The selected plugin(s) will be removed from your WordPress installation …

Updating And Deleting Plugins In The WordPress Admin Dashboard

How To Delete Multiple WP Plugins In Bulk

You can delete all inactive plugins at once, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be deleted.

Important

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 check box, or selecting the checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …

Upgrading And Deleting Plugins

Next, specify Deactivate from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …

How To Automatically Upgrade And Delete Plugins

Click the Apply button …

Updating And Deleting Plugins Safely In WordPress

The selected plugins will be deactivated …

Upgrading And Deleting Plugins Safely In Your WP Dashboard

Once you have deactivated these plugins, click on the Inactive link on the menu at the top of the page …

How To Automatically Update And Delete Plugins Safely Inside The WordPress Admin Dashboard

Click the checkbox in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to delete by checking their individual boxes …

Upgrading And Deleting Plugins Safely

Once you have ticked all the checkboxes next to the plugins that you want to delete, select Delete from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …

How To Automatically Upgrade And Delete Plugins

Click the Apply button …

How To Automatically Update And Delete Plugins Safely From Your Dashboard

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 sure that you would like to go ahead and remove all of the plugins listed …

Updating And Deleting Plugins In The Dashboard

All selected plugins will be deleted …

How To Automatically Update And Delete Plugins Safely

Tools For Managing WP Plugins

In addition to the methods shown above, you can use Free and Paid WordPress plugins to manage your plugins.

Health Check & troubleshooting

Health Check & Troubleshooting WordPress plugin
Health Check identifies common problems and helps you troubleshoot plugin and theme conflicts.

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

WPMU DEV's The Hub - Unlimited WordPress Site Management
WPMU DEV’s The Hub – Unlimited WordPress Site Management

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.

WPMU DEV: The Hub - My Sites - Updates menu

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.

WPMU DEV: The Hub - My Sites - Updates menu

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.

The Hub - Update notifications.
This feature can help you save a lot of time updating multiple WordPress sites, especially when WordPress releases a new version of its software.

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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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)

Originally published as How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins.