In a separate article, we explain what plugins are and how you can use these to increase your website’s functionality.
To read the article, go here:
In this tutorial you will learn why WordPress plugins need to be kept up-to-date, how to upgrade and delete plugins from your site, and some tips to help you better manage your plugins if you plan to manage multiple WordPress sites.
How To Update And Delete WordPress Plugins
Why Many Of Your WordPress Plugins Need Regular Upgrading
WordPress regularly updates its software (about every 3-4 months) to fix bugs and address security issues and vulnerabilities discovered in older releases, and to improve existing features or introduce new functionality to WordPress users.
Depending on how many plugins you use on your site, there will typically be new new update notices for plugins every.
The reason for this, is because most plugins for WordPress are created by third-party developers, so sometimes the code in the new WordPress version conflicts with plugins that were built 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 this is needed). All you need to do on your end, is maintain your plugins up-to-date, which, as you will soon learn, is really simple and easy to do.
Keeping your plugins regularly updated and removing old plugins you no longer need is part of good WordPress site management and helps to avoid potential errors and conflicts.
The step-by-step tutorial below explains how to automatically update and delete plugins safely in your WP dashboard with no web programming knowledge needed.
Upgrading And Deleting Plugins In The WP Admin Dashboard – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress uses several ways to let users know when plugins need updating.
For example, you can immediately see how many plugins are out-of-date as soon as you log into your Administration panel by looking at the “Plugins” menu.
In the example below, you can see that nine plugins have older versions that need updating …
You can also check how many plugins need updating from your WP Admin Toolbar (as shown below, several plugins need updating) …
The Plugins section (Plugins > Installed Plugins) also lets you know which plugins need to be updated …
As well as 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 the plugins individually or in bulk …
Let’s start by learning how to update individual plugins.
Upgrading Individual WordPress Plugins
Always make a backup of your site files and database before upgrading your website or blog.
From your main menu, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins …
The “Plugins” screen will display in your browser. The screen can be quite lengthy depending on how many plugins you have installed in your blog …
(WordPress Plugins Page)
Useful Info:
If you have too many plugins installed 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 enter a smaller number of items per page (by default, all plugins display on the page), then click Apply …
Your Plugins area will now be made more manageable with a page scrolling feature added. You can find an installed plugin by scrolling through the pages or using the “Search” box …
WordPress displays information about plugins in different backgrounds depending on the status of your plugins (inactive vs. active and outdated vs up-to-date) …
Plugins that require upgrading display the following notification message: “There is a new version of [Plugin Name] available” …
Select the plugin that needs to be updated and click on the update now link …
WordPress provides streamlined plugin updates, so that updating your plugins happens “behind the scenes” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Repeat this 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 upgrade them all at the same time.
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Now that you know how to update one plugin at a time, let’s show you how to bulk-upgrade WordPress plugins.
How To Bulk-Upgrade Plugins
To update multiple plugins in a single operation 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 on the check box next to 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 dropdown menu at the top of the page, select Update …
Click Apply …
The plugins you have selected will begin updating …
Once your plugins have been updated, you can click on the Return to Plugins page link to go back to the Plugins screen, or select another option from the WP dashboard menu …
Once your plugins are all up-to-date, any plugin alerts will 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!
(When your site uses the latest version of all plugins, update messages do not display)
Now that you know how to update plugins, let’s take a look at how to uninstall plugins safely from your WordPress blog or website.
Deleting Plugins
It’s a good idea to delete plugins that you no longer plan to use. This conserves server resources and also will help you avoid causes of some problems.
In this section, you will learn how to delete unused plugins from your blog or 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 dashboard menu and click on Plugins > Installed Plugins …
In the Plugins area, locate the plugin you want to delete and make sure it is inactive.
Hint: Inactive plugins appear in 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 …
Next, click on Delete …
If you want 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” screen …
The entire list of files associated with the plugin that you are about to remove will display on your screen …
If you are absolutely certain that you would like to proceed and delete these plugin, click on the Yes, Delete these files button …
Your plugins and related files will be deleted …
Deleting Multiple WordPress Plugins Simultaneously
You can bulk-delete all inactive plugins on your site, or select a combination of active and inactive plugins to be cleared.
Note: To delete any plugins that are currently 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) …
Once you have done this, select Deactivate from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click the Apply button …
Your selected plugins will be deactivated …
To delete all or some of the inactive plugins, go to the “Plugins” area and click on the Inactive link on the main menu …
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, choose Delete from the Bulk Actions drop down menu …
Click the Apply button …
A list of all selected plugins will display 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 would like to proceed to the next step and delete all of the selected plugins …
The selected plugins will be deleted and their associated files will be removed from your server …
Useful Management Tools For Plugins
As well as the methods shown above, you can install WordPress plugins that let 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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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)