In another blog post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use plugins to easily enhance your website’s functionality.
To read the article, go here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping all plugins up-to-date, how to easily upgrade and delete plugins from your site, and discover some great plugin management tips.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Some Plugins Need Updating
New versions of WordPress are frequently being released (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in previous software versions, as well as to improve existing features or introduce new ones.
Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, you can expect to see at least some new new update notifications for WordPress plugins whenever new WordPress versions are announced.
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 created and tested to work with a previous version. When this happens, conflicts can sometimes occur.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are very proactive when it comes to ensuring that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if updating is required). All you need to do on your end, is just keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is really simple to do.
Keeping your plugins up-to-date and removing old plugins you no longer need is part of good WordPress management and helps to avoid any errors and problems.
The WordPress tutorial below explains how to automatically update and delete plugins in your WP admin dashboard without requiring coding skills.
Updating And Deleting WordPress Plugins In The WP Dashboard – Tutorial
WordPress has a number of different methods to let users know when plugins on their site need to be updated.
For example, you can tell immediately how many plugins need to be updated as soon as you log into your Administration site just by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, nine WordPress plugins need updating …
You can also view how many plugins need to be updated from your WP Toolbar (as shown below, nine plugins need updating) …
The Plugins page (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also lets you know which plugins need updating …
As well as providing information about plugins that have available updates, the Plugins screen provides links to the plugin developer pages and gives you the option to update your plugins individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by learning how to update one WordPress plugin at a time.
Upgrade Individual WordPress Plugins
Always make a backup of your data and files before upgrading your blog or website.
In your admin menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” area. The table of plugins can flow down your page for some length, depending on the number of plugins you have added to your site …
(WordPress Plugins Page)
Tips:
If you have too many plugins installed and would like to make this section more manageable, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins screen and type in a smaller number of items per page (by default, all plugins display on the screen), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
Your Plugins page will now be reduced in size with a page scrolling feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Search Installed Plugins” field …
You will see information about plugins in different backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (active vs. inactive and up-to-date vs. outdated) …
Plugins that need updating have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin] available” …
Select the plugin that needs updating and click on the update now link …
WordPress has done away with the loading screen when updating plugins and streamlined the process, 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 updating, 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 upgrade one plugin at a time, let’s show you how to bulk-upgrade plugins.
How To Upgrade Multiple WordPress Plugins Simultaneously
To bulk-upgrade plugins 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 …
Tick 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 their individual boxes …
In the Bulk Actions drop down menu above the table of plugins, select Update …
Click Apply …
Your selected plugins will begin updating …
After all updates have been completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to the Plugins section, or select another option from the WordPress admin menu …
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 on your screen, toolbar and menus) …
All plugins are now up-to-date!
(When your site uses the latest version of all plugins, the notification icons do not display)
Now that you know how to automatically update your plugins, let’s show you how to safely uninstall plugins safely from your site.
How To Safely Delete WordPress Plugins
Occasionally, you may want to remove plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This can conserve resource usage and also help to eliminate causes of problems.
In this section, we show you how to remove unused plugins from your site or blog.
Always create 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 WP admin menu and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins screen, find the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is inactive.
Hint: Inactive plugins are listed in 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 proceeding …
Click on Delete …
If you want to review a list of all the files that will be deleted before going ahead with the next step, then click on the “Click to view entire list of files which will be deleted” link in the “Delete Plugin” section …
The entire list of files belonging to the plugin that you are about to remove will display on your screen …
If you are absolutely sure about going ahead and deleting the plugin files, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugin(s) will be deleted from your WordPress installation …
Bulk-Deleting WP Plugins
You can delete all inactive plugins at once, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be cleared.
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 checkbox, or selecting the check box next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins (warning: this will deactivate all plugins) …
Once you have done this, select Deactivate from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click Apply …
Your 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 …
Select all of the plugins you want to delete by either placing a tick next to their checkbox, or click on the check box next to the Plugin column header to select and delete all inactive plugins …
Once you have ticked all the check boxes next to the plugins that you want deleted, choose Delete from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click Apply …
A list of all selected plugins will be displayed 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 selected plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Managing WP Plugins – WordPress Tools
In addition to the methods shown above, you can use WordPress plugins that help 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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