In another article, we provide a detailed explanation of what plugins are all about and how you can use these to enhance your website’s functionality.
You can read this article here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping all WordPress plugins up-to-date, how to safely upgrade and remove plugins, and some great plugin management tools.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why WordPress Plugins Need Upgrading
WordPress constantly updates its software (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in earlier software releases, and to improve existing features or introduce new functionality to users.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, you can expect to see at least some new updates for WordPress plugins each time a new version of WordPress is announced.
This is because most WordPress plugins are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes code in the newly-released WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were developed and tested with a previous version. Whenever this happens, issues 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 this is required). All you need to do on your end, is just maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is very easy to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date and deleting old plugins you no longer need is part of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid potential errors or problems.
The WordPress step-by-step tutorial below explains how to automatically update and delete plugins inside the WP dashboard without requiring web coding skills or knowledge.
How To Automatically Update And Delete Plugins Safely – Tutorial
WordPress uses several methods to notify you when plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can tell immediately how many plugins need updating as soon as you log into your Site’s Dashboard simply by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, you can see that 9 WP plugins are out of date and need to be updated …
You can also view how many plugins need updating from your WP Notification Toolbar (in the screenshot below, you can see how many plugins require updating) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also provides information about plugins that need updating …
In addition to providing information about which plugins have available updates, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin download pages and gives you the option to update your plugins individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by showing you how to update individual plugins.
Upgrade Single A Plugin
Always make a complete backup of your website before updating your website.
In your main menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” area will display in your browser. This table of plugins can be quite lengthy depending on the number of plugins you have installed on your blog …
(The WordPress Plugins Page)
Notes:
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 page and type in a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show on the screen by default, i.e. “999”), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
Your Plugins area 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 Plugins” function …
You will see plugin information in different backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (inactive vs. active and up-to-date vs. outdated) …
Plugins that need upgrading have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin Name] available” …
Select 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 plugin updating process, so that the process of updating your plugins takes place “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins area …
Repeat this process for any other plugins on your site that need updating, or see the section below if you have a number of plugins that are out-of-date and would like to upgrade all plugins in one simple operation.
***
Now that you know how to upgrade WordPress plugins individually, let’s show you how to bulk-update plugins.
Bulk-Upgrading WP Plugins
To upgrade multiple WP plugins in one go directly inside your dashboard, go to the “Plugins” section and click on the Update Available link on the menu at the top of the page …
Tick the checkbox in the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select only the plugins you want to update by checking its box …
In the Bulk Actions drop-down menu above your plugin list, select Update …
Click Apply …
Your selected plugins will automatically begin updating …
Once all updates have been completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to the Plugins area, or go to another 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) …
All plugins have now been upgraded to their latest versions!
(When your site or blog uses the latest version of all plugins, the notification icons do not display)
Now that you know how to automatically update your in the admin dashboard, it’s time to learn how to remove plugins from your WordPress blog or website.
How To Safely Remove Plugins
At times, you may decide to remove plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This helps to decrease resources on your server and also helps to eliminate 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 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 click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins area, locate the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is inactive.
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 …
Click Delete …
If you would like to review a list of 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 …
The entire list of files associated with the plugin that you are about to delete will display on your screen …
If you are absolutely sure that you want to go ahead and delete the plugin files, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugins and related files will be deleted from your server …
Bulk-Deleting WordPress Plugins
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be removed.
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 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 pull-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 checkbox, or click on the checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select and delete all inactive plugins …
Once you have ticked all the checkboxes next to the plugins that you want deleted, specify 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 absolutely sure that you want to go ahead and remove all of the plugins listed …
The plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Managing Plugins
As well as the methods shown above, you can install a range of third-party 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.
***
"I am beyond impressed with what you have put together. I can tell that you put a ton of hard work into building what you have. You have the absolute best content on WordPress I have ever seen!" - Robert T. Jillie