In a separate blog post, we explain what plugins are and how you can use plugins to enhance your web site’s capabilities.
To read the article, go here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn the importance of keeping plugins up-to-date, how to safely update and delete plugins from your site, and some great tools to help you better manage your plugins if you plan to run multiple WordPress sites or blogs.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Plugins Need Updating
New WordPress versions are constantly being released (about every three to four months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in previous releases, as well as to improve existing features.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, there will typically be new new update notices for WordPress plugins every.
The reason for this, is because most plugins for WordPress are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes code in the new WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were developed and tested with a previous version. Whenever this happens, there is a potential for conflicts to 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 need to do on your end, is simply maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is very simple and easy to do.
Keeping your WordPress plugins up-to-date and removing old plugins you no longer use is part of good WordPress management and helps to avoid any errors or conflicts.
The WordPress step-by-step tutorial below explains how to update and delete plugins safely in the WP admin dashboard without web coding skills necessary.
How To Automatically Upgrade And Delete Plugins Inside The WordPress Dashboard – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress employs several ways to notify users when plugins need to be updated.
For example, you can tell immediately how many plugins need updating inside your Site’s Dashboard just by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, nine WordPress plugins need updating …
You can also check how many plugins need updating from your WP Admin Toolbar (in the screenshot below, you can again see that nine plugins should be brought up to date) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also notifies you about plugins that need updating …
As well as providing information about which plugins have updates available, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin download pages and gives you the option to update the plugin individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by showing you how to update individual plugins.
How To Update Individual Plugins
Always make a backup of your data and files before making any updates to your website.
In your main menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” section will display in your browser. The list of plugins can run down your page for some length, depending on how many plugins you have installed on your blog …
(WordPress Plugins Page)
Useful Info:
If you have too many plugins and would like to reduce the number of plugins displayed on the 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 on the screen by default, i.e. “999”), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
Your Plugins section 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 “Plugin Search” field …
You will see information about plugins in different color backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (inactive vs. active and up-to-date vs. out-of-date) …
Plugins that need upgrading have a distinctive notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin] available” …
Locate 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 plugin update process, so that the process of updating your plugins happens “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 many plugins that are out-of-date and would like to update them all in bulk.
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Now that you know how to update plugins one at a time, let’s show you how to upgrade several WordPress plugins simultaneously.
Bulk-Upgrading Plugins
To bulk-update WordPress plugins using the automatic upgrading feature, go to the “Plugins” page 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 each plugin you want to update by checking their individual boxes …
In the Bulk Actions dropdown menu above the list of plugins, select Update …
And then click Apply …
Your selected plugins will begin updating …
Once all updates have completed, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to the Plugins area, or choose another option from the sidebar menu …
Once all plugins are up-to-date, the update reminders disappear (i.e. the “at-a-glance” indicators and “There is a new version of XYZ plugin available” messages no longer display) …
You have updated all plugins on your site!
(When your site uses the latest version of all plugins, update notices do not display)
Now that you know how to automatically upgrade your plugins, let’s show you how to remove plugins from your site or blog.
How To Delete WP Plugins
At times, you may want to delete plugins that you no longer need or are no longer using on your site. This reduces resource usage and also help to eliminate potential problems.
In this section, we show you how to safely uninstall unused plugins from your 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 admin menu and select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins area, locate the plugin you want to remove and make sure it is deactivated.
Hint: Inactive plugins have a different background color than active plugins and show an “Activate” link below the plugin name …
If the plugin is active, then click on Deactivate before proceeding …
Click on Delete …
If you would like to have a look at 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 …
All files belonging to the plugin selected for removalwill be listed on your screen …
If you are positively certain about going ahead and deleting the selected plugin files, then click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
The selected plugins and related files will be removed from your WordPress installation …
Deleting Multiple WP Plugins At Once
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins on your site, 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 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, select 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 check box, or click on the checkbox 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 drop-down menu …
Click the Apply button …
A list of all selected plugins will be displayed in the Delete Plugins area. 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 certain that you want to proceed to the next step and remove all of the selected plugins …
All plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Managing WP Plugins – Tools
In addition to the methods shown above, you can use a range of third-party tools 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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