In another post, we provide an overview of what plugins are all about and how you can use these to easily add new features to your blog with no technical knowledge required.
You can read the article here:
In this tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping WordPress plugins up-to-date, how to automatically update and remove plugins, and discover practical tools to help you better manage your plugins if you manage multiple WordPress sites.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Some Plugins Need Frequent Updating
New versions of WordPress are frequently being released (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in earlier software versions, as well as to improve existing features or introduce new functionality to WordPress users.
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 released.
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. When this happens, there is a potential for problems to 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 updating is required). All you have to do on your end, is just keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is really easy to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins regularly updated and deleting old plugins you no longer need is an essential aspect of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid any potential conflicts and errors.
The WordPress tutorial below explains how to update and delete plugins in WordPress without requiring coding knowledge.
Upgrading And Deleting WordPress Plugins – Tutorial
WordPress has a few ways to notify users when plugins need updating.
For example, you can immediately see how many plugins are out-of-date as soon as you log into your Administration area by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, you can see that 9 WP plugins have older versions that need updating …
You can also check how many plugins need updating from your WP Toolbar (the screenshot below shows that nine plugins should be brought up to date) …
The Plugins screen (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you which plugins need to be updated …
As well as providing information about which plugins have available updates, the Plugins page provides links to the plugin download sites and gives you the option to update the plugin individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by showing you how to update one plugin at a time.
Upgrade Plugins One At A Time
Always make a complete backup of your website before upgrading your website or blog.
In your WP admin menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” screen will display in your browser. The screen can be quite long depending on how many plugins you have installed in your site …
(Plugins Screen)
Tips:
If you have too many plugins installed and would like to reduce the number of plugins displaying on your page, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins screen and enter 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 page 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” field …
You will see plugin information in different backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (active vs. inactive and up-to-date vs. outdated) …
Plugins that require updating display the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin] available” …
Select the plugin that you want to update and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides faster plugin updating, so that the process of updating your plugins happens “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat this process for all plugins on your site that need to be updated, or refer to the section below if you have many 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 one plugin at a time, the next step is to learn how to update a bunch of plugins simultaneously.
Bulk-Upgrading Plugins
To upgrade multiple WP plugins simultaneously using the automatic upgrading feature, go to the “Plugins” screen and click on the Update Available 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 upgrade by checking their individual boxes …
In the Bulk Actions dropdown menu above the table of plugins, choose Update …
And then click Apply …
Your selected plugins will begin to update automatically …
After all updates have completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to your Plugins screen, or select a different section of your dashboard …
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) …
You have updated all plugins on your site to their latest version!
(When plugins on your site are up-to-date, the notification icons disappear)
Now that you know how to automatically update WordPress inside the WP dashboard, it’s time to learn how to safely remove plugins safely from your WordPress blog or website.
Deleting WP Plugins
As part of good blog management practices, it’s a good idea to uninstall plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This conserves server resources and help to minimize causes of problems.
In this section, you will learn how to safely remove unused plugins from your WordPress blog or site.
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 remove a plugin, go to your dashboard menu and select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins screen, locate the plugin you want to delete 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, click on Deactivate before continuing with your plugin deletion …
Click Delete …
If you would like to browse 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” section …
All files associated with the plugin selected for deletionwill be listed on your screen …
If you are sure that you want to proceed and delete these plugin, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugins and related files will be deleted …
How To Safely Delete Several WP Plugins In Bulk
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 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) …
Once you have done this, specify Deactivate from the Bulk Actions drop 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 …
Select all of the plugins you want to delete by either placing a tick next to their checkbox, 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, choose Delete from the Bulk Actions drop down 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 go ahead and remove all of the plugins listed …
All plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Managing WordPress Plugins – Tools
In addition to the methods shown above, you can install a range of tools to 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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