How to Stop WordPress Auto Updates

WordPress developers keep improving on the features available to users.

And they do this by regularly upgrading their software, plugins, and themes especially those that are used by a lot of websites. This helps to avoid vulnerability and potential threats thereby enhancing the performance and security of your site.

From time to time, they push these new upgrades to your site via auto-updates.

But what happens when WordPress automatically updates your site

So many things, but primarily it could break up your pages, which will hinder your site from functioning optimally.

This of course will affect your business negatively.

you wouldn’t want that right?…

Even if the aim of this post is to teach you how to stop WordPress from auto-updating your website, there are still some benefits to it.

Let’s go through them.

Pros

The WordPress auto-update installs an upgrade on your site immediately it is available even before you get to know thereby ensuring that you have the latest version of the software.

It fortifies your website, protecting it from vulnerability when there is an issue with any of the plugins which you may not be aware of in time.

And just in case you are very busy and you forget to update your site, the automatic update steps in.

But there is a downside to WordPress auto-update.

Cons

Firstly, If you have modified your theme files, whenever there is an automatic update on the theme’s security it could break up your pages.

Secondly, for a site on automatic update, if it has too many plugin combinations, it could break when WordPress chooses to push an update.

So can we stop WordPress auto-update?

Yes of course.

And there are two ways of doing this:

Using a plugin

Or manually: by using a line code in your wp-config.php file.

The Plugin Method

The Easy updates manager plugin is the easiest way to stop WordPress auto-update.

It keeps track of all updates on your site and helps you go back to a previous working version when there is a break in your page.

To install, go to your WordPress dashboard, click on Plugins > Add New. Search for Easy Updates Manager.

Click on Install Now. And then Activate.

After activating the plugin, remain on your dashboard and click on the Updates Options to configure your settings.

You will notice that the plugin tab has the option to “Disable plugin updates”.

I will advise that you don’t choose that option as it will stop notifications of new updates from coming in which is harmful to your site’s security and could slow down its performance.

Instead, click on “Disable auto-updates”.

That way, you can manually update your plugins when you get a notification of a new update.

The same process applies to the theme.

The Manual Method

To do this, log in to your control panel and go to your SFTP or File Manager to edit the files at the root of your database.

Find the wp-config.php file.

Select it and click on Edit.

Inside the file insert the following lines based on what you want to do:

define( ‘WP_AUTO_UPDATE_CORE’, false );

This will stop WordPress auto-updates for the core files.

add_filter( ‘auto_update_plugin’, ‘__return_false’ );

This will stop WordPress auto-updates for plugins.

add_filter( ‘auto_update_theme’, ‘__return_false’ );

This will stop WordPress auto-updates for themes.

To wrap it up

Automatic updates have little or no effect on new or small websites, compared to let’s say an e-commerce website.

An automatic update breaking the pages of such a huge platform will be bad for business.

Imagine been caught unaware of something like that, you could lose a lot of your customers.

A manual update meanwhile gives you control over the process.

You can test a new update away from your live WordPress site.

If it is safe you can then push it to your site with just a few clicks.

But then, you should know that stopping your website from updating automatically means you are putting off an important security feature.

A 2019 hacked website trend report by Sucuri blamed the loss of some website to hackers because the owners of the hacked site choose not to update their software leaving it vulnerable to attacks.

So, as you choose the option to manually control the update of your site, you must avoid the risk of exposing your website by ensuring that your site is always updated.