My cousin told me that I should turn on automatic updates in Wordpress and I’m ready to do so, but can’t quite figure out all the steps. Can you walk me through the process, please?
Modern software is endlessly updating, from tiny fixes that are pushed without notification to major updates that change the entire user experience. Great new features can be added, while obscure ones silently vanish, often without anyone even noticing. Our computers, phones, even SmartTV systems are on update cycles. The primary motivation for these endless updates is actually security, not features; when an “exploit” is found and shared, the company wants to patch that hole ASAP!
This applies just as much to WordPress and your plugins as it does your Android or iPhone, so it’s no surprise that one complaint admins have is how often they need to check for updates. But WordPress has a couple of features that can mitigate much of the drudgery: Auto-updates! This breaks down into two categories; WordPress itself, and your plugins.
But it’s not all sunshine and roses, because there are some reasons you should be cautious and thoughtful about enabling auto-updates. The biggest one is possible incompatibilities. If you have a lot of plugins and highly customized themes, even a minor update could theoretically break your site. Install a dubious plugin and an auto-update can slip malware onto your server or worse. For most sites, however, updating WordPress itself is safe. Plug-ins you’ll want to evaluate on a case-by-case basis, as we’ll discuss further.
AUTO-UPDATES FOR WORDPRESS
Let’s go ahead and set up auto-updates for WordPress. In fact, your WordPress site already has auto-updates enabled, but just for what are categorized as critical security updates. Log in to your Dashboard, then go to “Updates”:
As of this writing, the most recent version of WordPress is 6.5.3, as you can see. Note below it the sentence “This site is automatically kept up to date with maintenance and security releases of WordPress only.” Below that is the link “Enable automatic updates for all new versions of WordPress.”
Click on that and you’ll be thanked by the app!
No mention of the risks of automatically updating the WordPress system. Want to switch back? The Updates page now shows this as the link:
If you’re having second thoughts, it’s easy to click on “Switch to automatic updates for maintenance and security releases only.”
ENABLE WORDPRESS PLUGIN AUTO-UPDATES
What about plug-ins? They’re pretty easy to switch up too. This time, look for “Plugins” in the menu on the left side of the Dashboard:
Choose “Installed Plugins” and you’ll see a list of all your plugins, as shown:
Notice along the very top I have 9 plugins, all are active, one is a must-use according to my hosting company, and 1 has auto-updates enabled.
The two shown, however, do not have auto-updates, which is why the last column lists “Enable auto-updates”. Yes, it’s that simple to enable automatic updates for plugins. However, should you? If they’re from a well-established and trustworthy developer, probably. If it’s a one-off from an unknown coder but has some cool functionality, I’d be a bit more leery. Maybe a few Google searches (or an AI query) to see if people have reported any problems or issues?
Both AdSense Integration WP QUADS and especially Akismet Anti-spam: Spam Protection are trustworthy and reliable in my estimation so I’m going to enable auto-updates by clicking on… you guessed it, “Enable auto-updates”.
Meanwhile, on the Auto-updates Enabled area, Google Analytics for WordPress by MonsterInsights is already enabled:
Some plugins offer more granular auto-updates too. A click on “Manage auto-updates” in this instance and here are the options from which I can choose:
A good compromise, though whether you want to follow the “recommended” option is entirely up to you, of course.
This particular plug-in won’t let me disable auto-updates based on the settings enforced by my hosting company, but notice that the links on the right side for Akismet are a bit different:
To turn off auto-updates for this plugin is a matter of clicking on “Disable auto-updates”. Easy.
Hope that helps you get your WordPress install configured optimally. Don’t forget to email your hosting company to see if they have any recommendations or recommended plugins based on their own analysis or expertise!
Pro Tip: I’ve been writing about – and running – WordPress for many years. Please check out my extensive WordPress help for lots of additional tutorials while you’re visiting. Thanks.