How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins

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

How To Automatically Upgrade And Delete Plugins In Your DashboardIn a separate blog post, we provide a detailed explanation of what plugins are about and how you can use these to easily add new features to your website without touching code.

To read the article, go here:

In this tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping your plugins up-to-date, how to safely update and uninstall plugins, and discover some tips to help you better manage your plugins.

How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins

Why Many Plugins Need To Be Regularly Upgraded

The WordPress software is regularly updated (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in earlier releases, as well as to improve existing features.

Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, there will typically be new new update notices for plugins each time a new WordPress version is announced.

This is because most WordPress plugins are created by external developers, so sometimes the code in the new 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 fairly 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 just maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is really simple to do.

Info

Keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date and removing old plugins you no longer use is part of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid any errors or conflicts.

The WordPress step-by-step tutorial below explains how to upgrade and delete plugins safely from your dashboard without requiring web coding skills or knowledge.

How To Automatically Update And Delete Plugins Safely – Step-By-Step Tutorial

WordPress utilizes a number of different methods to inform you when plugins need to be updated.

For example, you can see how many plugins are out-of-date as soon as you log into your WordPress Dashboard simply by looking at the “Plugins” menu.

For example, in the screenshot below, you can see that 9 plugins are out of date and need updating …

How To Upgrade And Delete Plugins Safely In WordPress

You can also check how many plugins need updating from your WP Administration Toolbar (as shown below, a number of plugins should be updated) …

How To Automatically Update And Delete WordPress Plugins Safely

The Plugins page (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also notifies you about plugins that need updating …

How To Automatically Update And Delete Plugins In WordPress

As well as providing information about plugins that have available updates, the Plugins screen provides links to the plugin developer sites and gives you the option to update your plugin with one-click …

Updating And Deleting Plugins In WordPress

Let’s start by learning how to update WordPress plugins one at a time.

Updating Individual Plugins

Warning

Always make a full backup of your data and files before upgrading your website.

In your dashboard menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins

Updating And Deleting Plugins

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

Upgrading And Deleting Plugins Inside Your WordPress Admin Dashboard

(WordPress Plugins Section)

Useful Tip

Useful 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 area and enter a smaller number of items per page (by default, all plugins display on the screen), then click Apply …

Upgrading And Deleting WordPress Plugins Safely

Your Plugins area 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 Plugins” function …

How To Automatically Update And Delete Plugins

You will see information about plugins in different backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (active vs. inactive and out-of-date vs up-to-date) …

Updating And Deleting Plugins

Plugins that need upgrading have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin] available”

How To Upgrade And Delete Plugins Safely In The Dashboard

Select the plugin that you want to update and click on the update now link …

How To Update And Delete Plugins Safely Inside Your WordPress Admin Dashboard

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 happens with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins area …

Updating And Deleting Plugins In WordPress

Repeat the above process for all plugins on your site that need updating, or see the section below if you have several plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update them all at the same time.

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Now that you know how to upgrade individual WP plugins, the next step is to learn how to upgrade many WordPress plugins simultaneously.

Bulk-Updating WP Plugins

To bulk-upgrade plugins simultaneously using the automatic update feature, go to the “Plugins” page and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …

Updating And Deleting Plugins Safely

Tick the check box in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to update by checking its box …

How To Upgrade And Delete Plugins Safely From The Dashboard

In the Bulk Actions drop-down menu above your plugin list, select Update

How To Update And Delete Plugins Safely Inside Your Dashboard

And then click Apply

How To Update And Delete Plugins Safely In The WP Dashboard

Your selected plugins will begin the update process …

How To Automatically Upgrade And Delete WordPress Plugins In The WP Dashboard

Once all upgrades are done, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to your Plugins area, or visit a different section of your dashboard …

How To Automatically Update And Delete Plugins Safely

Once your plugins are all 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) …

How To Automatically Upgrade And Delete Plugins Safely In The Dashboard

You have updated all plugins on your site!

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

(When plugins on your site are all up-to-date, update alerts no longer appear)

Now that you know how to upgrade WordPress in your dashboard, let’s show you how to safely delete plugins from your WordPress site or blog.

How To Safely Delete Plugins

At times, you may decide to delete plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This reduces resources on your server and also help to eliminate causes of problems.

In this section, you will learn how to delete unused plugins from your WordPress site.

Warning

Always create 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 WP admin menu and choose Plugins > Installed Plugins

How To Automatically Update And Delete WordPress Plugins In Your Dashboard

In the Plugins area, find the plugin you want to delete 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 …

How To Update And Delete Plugins Safely

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

How To Automatically Upgrade And Delete Plugins Safely In The Dashboard

Once you have deactivated the plugin, click Delete

How To Update And Delete Plugins In WordPress

If you need to review a list of 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” screen …

Upgrading And Deleting Plugins

A complete list of files belonging to the plugin that you are about to remove will be listed on your screen …

How To Upgrade And Delete Plugins From The WP Dashboard

If you are positively certain about going ahead and deleting these plugin files, then click on the Yes, Delete these files button …

How To Automatically Update And Delete WordPress Plugins Safely From The WP Dashboard

The selected plugins and related files will be deleted …

How To Automatically Update And Delete Plugins

Bulk-Deleting Plugins

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

Useful Information

Note: To delete any plugins that are presently 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 check box, or selecting the check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …

Updating And Deleting Plugins Safely From Your Dashboard

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

How To Update And Delete Plugins In Your WP Dashboard

Click the Apply button …

How To Upgrade And Delete Plugins Safely

Your selected plugins will be deactivated …

How To Upgrade And Delete Plugins

To delete all or some of the inactive plugins on your site, go to the “Plugins” area and click on the Inactive link on the main menu …

Updating And Deleting Plugins Inside Your Dashboard

Select all of the plugins you want to delete by either placing a tick next to their check box, or click on the check box next to the Plugin column header to select and delete all inactive plugins …

Upgrading And Deleting WordPress Plugins Safely From The WP Admin Dashboard

Once you have ticked all the check boxes next to the plugins that you want deleted, specify Delete from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …

How To Automatically Upgrade And Delete Plugins Safely Inside Your WordPress Dashboard

Click the Apply button …

How To Automatically Upgrade And Delete WordPress Plugins

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 want to go ahead and delete all of the selected plugins …

How To Update And Delete Plugins Inside The WP Dashboard

Your plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …

How To Upgrade And Delete Plugins Safely

WordPress Tools For Managing Plugins

In addition to the methods shown above, you can install WordPress plugins that let you 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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Originally published as How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins.