In a previous article, we provide a detailed explanation of what plugins are about and how you can use plugins to easily add new features to your web site with no technical skills required.
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 easily upgrade and uninstall plugins from your site, and discover practical plugin management tools.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Some Of Your Plugins Need Upgrading
New WordPress versions are constantly being released (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities found in previous software releases, and to improve existing features.
Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, you can expect to see at least some new new update notifications for plugins when WordPress releases a new version.
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. When this happens, issues can sometimes occur.
Fortunately, most WordPress plugin developers (and the WordPress developer community itself) are fairly proactive when it comes to ensuring that plugins get updated when a new version of WordPress is released (if needed). All you need to do as a website owner, is just maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is really easy to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date and removing old plugins you no longer need is an essential aspect of good WordPress management and helps to avoid problems and errors.
The step-by-step tutorial below explains how to automatically upgrade and delete plugins from your dashboard with no coding knowledge necessary.
How To Automatically Update And Delete Plugins Safely In WordPress – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress uses a number of different ways to let you know when plugins on your blog need updating.
For example, you can see ‘at a glance’ how many plugins are out-of-date as soon as you log into your Admin area by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
In the example below, you can see that 9 plugins need to be updated …
You can also see how many plugins need to be updated from your WP Administration Toolbar (in the screenshot below, you can see how many plugins need to be updated) …
The Plugins screen (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also provides information about plugins that need updating …
In addition to providing information about which plugins have updates available, 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 showing you how to upgrade one plugin at a time.
Upgrade Individual WordPress Plugins
We recommend performing a full backup of your site files and database before upgrading your website or blog.
From your main menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” area will display in your browser. This list of plugins can be quite lengthy depending on the number of 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 displaying on the page, then click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your Plugins screen and type in a smaller number of items per page (all plugins show on the page by default, i.e. “999”), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
Your Plugins area will now be reduced in size with a ’numbered pages’ feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Search Plugins” feature …
WordPress displays information about plugins in different color backgrounds depending on the status of the plugins (active vs. inactive and up-to-date vs. out-of-date) …
Plugins that need updating display the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Insert Plugin Name] available” …
Find the plugin that needs to be updated and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides streamlined plugin updates, so that updating your plugins takes place with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat the above process for any other plugins on your site that need updating, or see the section below if you have several 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 WordPress plugins one at a time, the next step is to learn how to bulk-update WordPress plugins.
How To Bulk-Upgrade Plugins
To update multiple 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 checkbox 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 pull-down menu at the top of the page, choose Update …
Click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will begin to update automatically …
After your plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to the Plugins area, or choose another option from the WP admin menu …
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) …
All plugins are now up-to-date!
(When your site or blog uses the latest version of all plugins, update alerts do not display)
Now that you know how to update your in the dashboard, it’s time to learn how to safely remove plugins safely from your WordPress site.
Deleting Plugins
Occasionally, you may want to remove plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This can help to conserve server resources and also eliminate causes of problems.
In this section, we show you how to safely deactivate and delete unused plugins from your site.
We strongly recommend creating 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 remove a plugin, go to your admin menu and choose Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins screen, locate the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is inactive.
Hint: Inactive plugins have a different colored background than active plugins and show an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, click on Deactivate before proceeding with your plugin deletion …
Once you have deactivated the plugin, click Delete …
If you would like 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 belonging to the plugin selected for deletionwill display on your screen …
If you are certain about going ahead and deleting these plugin files, then 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 delete all inactive plugins at once, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be uninstalled.
Note: To delete any plugins that are presently active, you 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) …
Once you have done this, choose Deactivate from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click Apply …
All selected plugins will be deactivated …
To delete all or some of the inactive plugins on your site, go to the “Plugins” area 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 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, specify Delete from the Bulk Actions pull-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 sure that you would like to go ahead and remove all of the plugins listed …
All selected plugins will be deleted …
Useful Management Tools For Plugins
In addition to the methods shown above, you can install other WordPress plugins that let 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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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now