Automatically update major and minor versions of WordPress along with plugins and themes.
I have been looking for easy ways to update my plugins and themes without having to login to a site. I am looking forward to the day WordPress Core has it built in. Just clicking a checkbox that says auto enable updates would be really nice. Until the time arrives that WordPress Core has it built in there are a few ways to add automatic updates to WordPress.
Automatic updating through Plugins
I installed and activated the Advanced Automatic Updates plugin by Pento.
It has its own Settings page inside the Settings section.
One can update major and minor versions of WordPress along with plugins and themes.
Another plugin is Update Control by George Stephanis and Chip Bennett.
Update Control adds additional settings to the to the bottom area of the Settings -> General page.
The Easy Updates Manager plugin has a lot of options in it for disabling specific plugins or themes from updating. I helped the developers create a friendlier user interface. Here are some screenshots from it:
There is also a premium version containing additional features: https://easyupdatesmanager.com/
Another plugin:
WP updates settings plugin
Automatic updating by adding code into the wp-config.php file.
The codex has page for Configuring Automatic Background Updates.
One can add the following to the child theme functions.php file:
Add the following:
/* Enable all major core updates */
add_filter( ‘allow_major_auto_core_updates’, ‘__return_true’ );
/* Enable updating plugins */
add_filter( ‘auto_update_plugin’, ‘__return_true’ );
/* Enable updating themes */
add_filter( ‘auto_update_theme’, ‘__return_true’ );
/* Disable sending email on updates */
add_filter( ‘auto_core_update_send_email’, ‘__return_false’ );
For additional code check: wpbeaches.com/automatically-update-wordpress-plugins-themes-translations/
Thanks for this post Paal,
I’m wondering how the user gets notified when the software gets updated. I guess it via email. I can only assume that if there is no parameter for email that the admin email gets used for notification. Would you agree with this assumption? The nightmare would be that no email is received and the site crashes due to an update.
Hey Scott
Yeah the user gets notified by e-mail as it is mentioned in the setting for it.
Notification Email
By default, Automatic Updates will send an email to the Site Admin when an update is performed. If you would like to send that email to a different address, you can set it here.
Override Email Address: ___________
——
It seems to be a general get an e-mail when the site is updated. (I turned off notification and hope for the best.)
So yes as you say “The nightmare would be that no email is received and the site crashes due to an update.” I totally agree on this. It has worked out fairly well for myself and the clients. Sometimes some bugs have showed up and the client has e-mailed me about a problem that I have then looked into and got it fixed. It would be better with an AI letting me know that something is off with a site after it has been updated, and that either the AI reverted back to the working plugin/theme/WP version or that I went to the site and logged in and reverted or figured out an even better way to fix the problem. Today one can install the WP Rollback plugin https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-rollback/ making it easier to roll back to an earlier plugin or theme that is listed at wordpress.org.
Should this instantly update all my plugins? Because when I paste this code in my wp-config it doesn’t update my plugins.
Bas. Updating does not happen right away. The plugins should update after a while.
Personally I am instead using an automatic update plugin.