In a separate blog post, we provide an overview of what plugins are about and how you can use these to easily expand your blog’s capabilities.
To view the article, go here:
In this tutorial you will learn why WordPress plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to safely upgrade and uninstall your WordPress plugins, and some tools to help you better manage your plugins.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Some Of Your Plugins Need Frequent Updating
New versions of WordPress are frequently being released (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in earlier versions, and to improve existing features.
Depending on how many plugins you have installed on your site, there will typically be new new update notices for WordPress plugins each time a new version of WordPress is made available.
This is because most plugins for WordPress are created by 3rd-party developers, so sometimes features in the new WordPress version conflict with plugins that were built for a previous version. Whenever this happens, there is a potential for problems to sometimes develop.
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 this is required). All you have to do as a website owner, is just keep your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon discover, is very simple and easy to do.
Keeping your plugins up-to-date and deleting old plugins you no longer need is part of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid any errors and problems.
The step-by-step tutorial below explains how to automatically update and delete WordPress plugins without requiring web coding skills.
Updating And Deleting WordPress Plugins – Tutorial
WordPress provides a number of different ways to inform users when plugins need updating.
For example, you can tell immediately how many plugins are out-of-date inside your Admin area by looking at the main “Plugins” menu.
For example, in the screenshot below, 9 plugins have older versions that need updating …
You can also see how many plugins need updating from your WordPress Administration Toolbar (as shown below, several plugins need to be updated) …
The Plugins screen (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also tells you which plugins need updating …
In addition to providing information about plugins that have updates available, the Plugins section provides links to the plugin download pages and gives you the option to update your plugin instantly …
Let’s start by showing you how to update one plugin at a time.
Upgrade Single WordPress Plugins
We strongly recommend making a backup of your site files and database before upgrading your blog or website.
In your admin menu, select Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” section will display in your browser. The table of plugins can flow down your screen for some length, depending on the number of plugins you have installed on your blog …
(The WordPress Plugins Page)
Additional Info:
If you have too many plugins and would like to reduce the number of plugins displaying on your 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 screen by default), then click the ‘Apply’ button …
Your Plugins page 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” field …
WordPress displays 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 display the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Insert 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 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 to be updated, or refer to 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.
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Now that you know how to update plugins one at a time, it’s time to learn how to upgrade a bunch of WordPress plugins simultaneously.
Bulk-Updating Plugins
To bulk-update plugins 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 each plugin you want to upgrade by checking its box …
In the Bulk Actions drop down menu above the plugin table, choose Update …
And then click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will begin to update automatically …
Once your plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to your Plugins screen, or choose another option from the admin menu …
Once your plugins are all 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 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, update notices no longer display)
Now that you know how to automatically upgrade WordPress plugins, let’s take a look at how to remove plugins from your blog or website.
How To Safely Delete WordPress Plugins
It’s a good idea to remove plugins that are no longer needed or being used on your site. This decreases resource usage and help to reduce causes of some problems.
In this section, you will learn how to remove unused plugins from your WordPress blog or site.
Always create a full back up of your WordPress 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 admin menu and choose Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins screen, locate the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is inactive.
Hint: Inactive plugins are listed in 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 continuing with your plugin deletion …
Click Delete …
If you would like to have a look at all the files that will be deleted before proceeding, then click on the “Click to view entire list of files which will be deleted” link in the “Delete Plugin” section …
A complete list of files belonging to the plugin that you are about to remove will display on your screen …
If you are absolutely certain about going ahead and deleting the selected plugin, then click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugins and related files will be deleted from your WordPress installation …
How To Bulk-Delete 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) …
Next, choose Deactivate from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click Apply …
All 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 …
Click on the checkbox next to the Plugin column header to select all plugins at once, or select each plugin you want to remove by checking its box …
Once you have selected all of the plugins that you want to delete, choose Delete from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu …
Click Apply …
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 sure that you would like to proceed to the next step and remove all of the plugins listed …
The selected plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Managing Plugins
In addition to the methods shown above, you can install a range of 3rd-party tools that help you 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 an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum