How to Disable Automatic Updates in WordPress

[shukla7789]

Creativemotions»WordPress Tips & Guides»How to Disable Automatic Updates in WordPress

How to Disable WordPress Automatic Updates
Have you ever checked your WordPress site and found that your theme wasn’t working, a plugin feature was broken, or major features had been moved or changed? If so, you might have been surprised to find that WordPress’ automatic updates were to blame .

To avoid this problem, you can disable automatic updates in WordPress . This gives you more control over your site and allows you to test updates for compatibility and avoid potentially unwanted changes to functionality. Of course, it also means you’ll have to manually update your site to patch potential security holes.

In this article, we’ll look at why you might want to disable WordPress automatic updates and show you how to do it using code or a simple plugin.

Let's dive right in!

Table of Contents view
Why disable WordPress automatic updates?
In general, WordPress automatic updates are a good thing and we netherlands phone number data most users leave them enabled. However, in some cases it may be useful to disable some or all automatic updates.

The main reason to disable automatic updates is that they can sometimes break a website. Most of the time, updates are thoroughly tested and will not be a problem to run. This is especially true with WordPress core, as well as many popular themes and plugins.

That said, developers can’t possibly test their software with every possible combination of plugins and themes. If you have tools installed that are built for a certain version of WordPress or that rely on other plugins, an update can cause compatibility issues for others. In rare cases, this could cause a chain reaction that breaks your entire website or impairs its functionality.

Another potential problem with automatic updates is unwanted feature changes. If you remember the launch of the WordPress block editor , formerly known as Gutenberg, you probably also remember the controversy that surrounded it. Despite plenty of advance warning, many users experienced disruptions to their workflows because they weren’t prepared for that update.

For these reasons, if your site is a vital part of your business, it’s best practice to review and test updates before applying them to your live site.

Pros and Cons of Disabling WordPress Automatic Updates
Before we move forward, however, it’s important to be aware that disabling WordPress automatic updates has its advantages and disadvantages.

Let's explore the most important considerations in more detail.

Benefits of Disabling Automatic Updates
You have more control over changes to your website.
You can ensure that all your plugins and themes work with new updates, thus avoiding site errors and broken features.
You don't have to worry about theme and plugin updates overwriting manual changes you've made.
Cons of disabling updates
You could miss important security updates, leaving your website vulnerable.
Manually reviewing and applying updates can be time consuming, especially if you have multiple sites to keep up to date.
How to disable automatic updates via code
You can disable automatic updates for WordPress core files, plugins and themes by simply adding a few code snippets.

Here's how.

Step 1: Add code to your wp-config.php file
To disable automatic WordPress core updates, you need to add the following code to your wp-config.php file :

define( 'WP_AUTO_UPDATE_CORE', false );

To access the file, you will need to use a File Transfer Protocol (FTP) solution (we recommend the free FileZilla client ) or the file manager in your web hosting 's cPanel .

Once you have access to your site's files, you can find the wp-config.php file in your site's root directory. Open the file and add the following code snippet towards the end, just above the line that says /* That's all, stop editing! Happy blogging. */ :

How to Add Code to Your wp-config File to Disable WordPress Automatic Updates
WordPress will no longer install updates automatically from this point on. However, this only applies to the basic installation. If you also want to disable plugin and theme updates, proceed to the next step.