In a separate blog post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use plugins to easily enhance your website’s capabilities.
You can read the article here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping plugins up-to-date, how to update and uninstall plugins from your site, and discover practical plugin management tools.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Many WordPress Plugins Need Updating
New versions of WordPress are regularly released (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in older releases, 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, you can expect to see at least some new updates for WordPress plugins every.
The reason for this, is because most WordPress plugins are created by third-party developers, so sometimes features in the new WordPress version conflict with plugins that were developed for a previous version. Whenever this happens, problems can sometimes occur.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are quite 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 have to do on your end, is simply keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is really easy and 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 potential errors and conflicts.
The WordPress step-by-step tutorial below explains how to automatically update and delete WordPress plugins safely without touching web code.
Upgrading And Deleting Plugins Safely From The WP Admin Dashboard – Tutorial
WordPress utilizes several ways to notify users when plugins need updating.
For example, you can immediately see how many plugins need updating from your Administration area by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, 9 WP plugins need updating …
You can also see how many plugins need to be updated from your WP Toolbar (in the screenshot below, you can again see that 9 plugins have to be updated) …
The Plugins screen (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you what plugins need to be updated …
As well as providing information about which plugins have available updates, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin download sites and gives you the option to update your plugin with one-click …
Let’s start by showing you how to upgrade plugins individually.
How To Update Single WordPress Plugins
We strongly recommend making a complete backup of your data and files before updating your website.
From your admin menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
You will be taken to the “Plugins” page. This list of plugins can be quite long depending on how many plugins you have added to your blog …
(Plugins Screen)
Notes:
If you have too many plugins and would like to reduce the number of plugins showing on the screen, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins area and type in a smaller number of items per page (by default, all plugins display on the screen), then click Apply …
Your Plugins area will now be made more manageable with a ’numbered pages’ feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Search” field …
WordPress displays information about plugins in different backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (active vs. inactive and up-to-date vs. out-of-date) …
Plugins in need of updating have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin] available” …
Find the plugin that you want to update and click on the update now link …
WordPress has done away with the loading screen when updating plugins and streamlined the process, so that the process of updating your plugins happens with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat the above process for any other 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 them all at once.
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Now that you know how to update one WordPress plugin at a time, let’s show you how to upgrade a bunch of plugins simultaneously.
How To Bulk-Update WordPress Plugins
To upgrade multiple WP plugins simultaneously 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 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 plugin table, choose Update …
And then click Apply …
Your selected plugins will all be updated at once …
After all updates have been completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to your Plugins screen, or choose another section of your dashboard …
Once all plugins are up-to-date, the plugin notifications 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 to their latest version!
(When your site uses the latest version of all plugins, notification icons do not display)
Now that you know how to automatically update WordPress plugins, it’s time to learn how to safely uninstall plugins safely from your WordPress site or blog.
How To Remove Plugins
It’s a good idea to uninstall plugins that you no longer require. This helps to decrease resources on your server and also help to minimize potential problems.
In this section, we show you how to uninstall unused plugins from your blog or site.
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 restore your site.
To delete a plugin, go to your WP admin menu and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins area, find the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is deactivated.
Hint: Inactive plugins appear in a different colored background than active plugins and display an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, then click on Deactivate before proceeding with your plugin deletion …
Next, click Delete …
If you need to browse 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” page …
A complete list of files associated with the plugin selected for deletionwill be listed on your screen …
If you are positively certain that you would like to proceed and delete the selected plugin, just click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugins and related files will be deleted …
How To Safely Delete Several WP Plugins Simultaneously
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be deleted.
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) …
Next, select Deactivate from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu …
Click the Apply button …
All selected plugins will be deactivated …
To delete all or some of the inactive plugins, go to the “Plugins” page and click on the Inactive link in the Plugins menu …
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 …
Once you have selected all the plugins that you want deleted, select Delete from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click the Apply button …
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 absolutely sure that you want to proceed to the next step and remove all of the plugins listed …
Your 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 install a range of third-party tools to 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