A lot of people said it’s not good practice to keep inactive plugins on your WordPress website. Do you believe so? And do deactivated plugins slow down your websites?
Well, let’s take a deeper look at how this plugin became a culprit for some and answer the question, “Do deactivated plugins slow down WordPress, and whether it’s safe to delete them?”
Let’s dive right in.
What Are WordPress Plugins?
Plugins are great since they extend and expand the functionality of your WordPress websites.
Having great plugins installed on your site helps you track down visitors, capture their email addresses, share your stuff to different social media platforms, rank high in major search engines, help keep the WordPress website secure, and a lot more.
To check whether or not you have inactive plugins on your site, all you need to do is click on the Plugins menu from the left panel and then click the Inactive link (if you currently have inactive plugins) as you can see from the screenshot below.
You may also want to see this must-have for every new WordPress site. Kindly take a look if you haven’t already.
Do Inactive Plugins Slowdown WordPress?
Deactivated or inactive plugins do not necessarily slow down WordPress.
That’s right, inactive plugins are in no way or another causing your WordPress website to slow down.
How is it possible?
Here’s how WPBeginner shares how WordPress actually works behind the scenes.
With that, whether you have dozens of inactive plugins installed on your website, it would not affect the performance of your site or make it slow in particular.
Rather, one issue might be your current web hosting and other factors.
Check out my collection of the best WordPress hosting providers for any web hosting needs.
Is It Safe To Delete Inactive Plugins?
So, here’s the thing.
Is it safe to delete inactive plugins?
Though inactive plugins have nothing to do with slowing down your site, they still may cause vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers.
WordPress plugins are executable files, that can get infected or can be used to install malware on your site.
It is also advisable not to keep inactive plugins on your WordPress website. You want to keep your site tidy and beware of unwanted plugin updates.
To delete inactive plugins, all you have to do is visit the inactive plugins as mentioned above and then click on the Delete link.
That’s it.
WordPress security is something to look forward to since WordPress websites have become popular hacker targets these days.
I hope this article helped clear out misconceptions and answer your questions about deactivated plugins slowing down your site.
You may also want to see this list of the best WordPress anti-spam plugins to keep your WordPress website clean.
