Clean up Themes and Plugins

In this lesson I’ll cover how to remove unneeded themes and plugins while keeping those that add the most value to our author website.

Remove Unwanted Themes

We’re going to KEEP the latest core WordPress theme and remove the rest.

• From the dashboard go to Appearance > Themes
• The ‘Twenty Twenty-Five’ theme should be active. If not hover over it and click on Activate
• Once you’ve activated Twenty Twenty-Five hover over the NEXT theme in the grid and click on ‘Theme Details’
• Go to the bottom right corner of the Theme Info Box, click on delete and confirm the deletion. 
• Repeat until all the themes EXCEPT Twenty Twenty-Five have been removed.

Remove Unwanted Plugins

Now that we have only one theme next we’re going to remove any unwanted plugins.

When it comes to plugins less is more which is why we want to uninstall all the plugins that came with the WordPress install from the webhost.

There are exceptions.

Some web hosts include security and caching plugins with their WordPress installs. These plugins are usually tailored to work with that specific host and it’s a good idea to let them be. If you’re not sure, contact the support team of your web host.

There are no installed security or cache plugins with this install so lets get rid of the plugins we don’t need.

• From the WordPress dashboard go to ‘Plugins > Installed Plugins’
• I have two plugins. Akismet, and Hello Dolly
• Check the boxes beside Akismet and Hello Dolly
• Use the bulk actions drop down to deactivate them both at the same time.
• Once all the unwanted plugins are deactivated I use the bulk actions drop down to delete them.

Summary

Removing unwanted themes and plugins reduces the size of the website install, aids page loading speed, reduces the opportunity for issues and helps secure the website from out of date or abandoned themes or plugins.

Call to Action

You can check out the full list of tools I not only recommend but use over on the toolkit page.