In another article, we explain what plugins are and how you can use plugins to easily increase your website’s functionality.
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 uninstall plugins from your site, and discover some great tools to help you better manage your plugins.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Many Of Your Plugins Need Regular Upgrading
WordPress constantly updates its software (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in previous software versions, as well as to improve existing features or introduce new ones.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, there will typically be new new update notices for WordPress plugins each time a new version of WordPress is made available.
The reason for this, is because most WordPress plugins are created by third-party developers, so sometimes features in the newly-released WordPress version conflict with plugins that were developed and tested with a previous version. When this happens, conflicts can sometimes develop.
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 as a website owner, is simply maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is very simple, quick and easy to do.
Keeping your plugins regularly updated and deleting old plugins you no longer need is an essential aspect of good WordPress management and helps to avoid problems or errors.
The tutorial below explains how to update and delete WordPress plugins safely without touching web code.
Upgrading And Deleting WordPress Plugins In Your WordPress Admin Dashboard – Tutorial
WordPress has several methods to notify you when plugins need updating.
For example, you can see how many plugins need to be updated from your Site’s Dashboard just by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, you can see that 9 WordPress plugins need to be updated …
You can also see how many plugins need updating from your WordPress Administration Toolbar (as shown below, a number of plugins require updating) …
The Plugins screen (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also lets you know which plugins need updating …
As well as providing information about plugins that have updates available, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin developer sites and gives you the option to update your plugin instantly …
Let’s start by showing you how to update one WordPress plugin at a time.
Updating WordPress Plugins Individually
We strongly recommend performing a full backup of your website before making any upgrades to your website or blog.
From your admin menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” screen will display in your browser. This list of plugins can be quite lengthy depending on the number of plugins you have installed in your blog …
(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 area and type in a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show up on the screen by default, i.e. “999”), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
Your Plugins area 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 Installed Plugins” box …
You will see information about plugins in different color backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (active vs. inactive and outdated vs up-to-date) …
Plugins that require updating show the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Insert Plugin Name] available” …
Select the plugin that needs to be updated and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides smooth and simple plugin updates, so that updating your plugins takes place “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat the above 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 them all at once.
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Now that you know how to update WP plugins individually, it’s time to learn how to update many plugins simultaneously.
How To Bulk-Upgrade WP Plugins
To update multiple plugins at the same time 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 …
Click on the check box in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to upgrade by checking its box …
In the Bulk Actions drop down menu at the top of the page, choose Update …
And then click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will automatically begin updating …
Once your plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to the Plugins section, or select another option from the WordPress dashboard menu …
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!
(When your site uses the latest version of all plugins, update icons no longer display)
Now that you know how to update WordPress inside your dashboard, let’s show you how to remove plugins from your site or blog.
How To Safely Remove WP Plugins
Occasionally, you may want to remove WP plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This helps to reduce resources on your server and eliminates potential problems.
In this section, we show you how to remove unused plugins from your WordPress site or blog.
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 restore your site.
To delete a plugin, go to your dashboard menu and choose Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins area, find the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is deactivated.
Hint: Inactive plugins have a different background color than active plugins and display an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, then click on Deactivate before proceeding …
Next, click on Delete …
If you want to review a list of 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 that you are about to remove will display on your screen …
If you are certain about going ahead and deleting the selected plugin, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugins and related files will be deleted …
Deleting Multiple Plugins In Bulk
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be cleared.
Note: To delete any plugins that are currently 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 checkbox, or selecting the checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …
Next, choose Deactivate from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click Apply …
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 …
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 selected all the plugins that you want deleted, select Delete from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click the Apply button …
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 absolutely sure that you would like to proceed to the next step and delete all of the plugins listed …
The selected plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Managing WP Plugins – Tools
As well as the methods shown above, you can install Free and Premium WordPress plugins that let you manage your 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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"This is AMAZING! I had learnt about how to use WordPress previously, but this covers absolutely everything and more!! Incredible value! Thank you!" - Monique, Warrior Forum