How to properly uninstall a WordPress plugin (for beginners)

Why uninstall a WordPress plugin?

As your website grows, you may find that there are plugins that are no longer in use. Removing unnecessary plugins helps improve the performance and security of your website. Unused plugins can slow down your website and create security vulnerabilities. Therefore, you should regularly check and remove unnecessary plugins.

The difference between disabling and uninstalling a plugin

• Deactivation: It is simply a temporary disabling of the plugin without deleting any data. Suitable for testing or debugging.
• Uninstall: It is the complete removal of the plugin from the website to reduce the database size and improve website performance.

If you no longer intend to use the plugin, uninstalling it is the best option.

How to uninstall a WordPress plugin

• Log in to the WordPress Dashboard
• Go to Plugins > Installed Plugins
• Find the plugin you want to delete. If the plugin is still active, click Deactivate first.
• Click Delete under the plugin name.
• The system will ask you to confirm. Click OK to proceed.

After that, the plugin will be completely removed from your website.

Deleting additional files created by the plugin

Some plugins may store files outside the plugin folder, which will not be deleted automatically. You can use an FTP Client or File Manager in your hosting to delete unwanted files by:

• Connect to the server via FTP.
• Go to the /wp-content/ folder
• Search for and delete files or folders related to the plugin.

Managing unused shortcodes

If the deleted plugin used Shortcodes, it might cause the webpage to display unnecessary code. You can hide the unused Shortcodes by adding this code to functions.php:

add_shortcode( 'pluginshortcode', '__return_false' );

(Don't forget to change 'pluginshortcode' to the Shortcode name of the deleted plugin)

Clearing the WordPress database

Some plugins may create their own database tables, which can increase the size of the database. You can use phpMyAdmin to delete unnecessary tables:

• Log in to cPanel and open phpMyAdmin.
• Select your database and find the table related to the plugin.
• Select the table you want to delete, then choose Drop to remove it.
• Press confirm Yes

Warning: Deleting database data is an irreversible action. Please back up your data before proceeding.