Automatic updates

Keeping WordPress core, plugins, and themes up to date is one of the most important things you can do for security. This page explains how updates are handled on Templ and how to control which ones run automatically.

How updates work on Templ

WordPress updates run according to how each site is configured - Templ never changes your update settings or applies updates for you.

The exceptions are our paid WordPress updates service and rare security emergencies.

In case of a serious vulnerability, we may update WordPress core and/or affected plugins to the latest patch or minor release. We do this because waiting for automatic updates can take too long, and some sites have automatic updates disabled entirely.

Our recommendation

Keep minor auto-updates enabled. WordPress installs minor and security releases automatically by default, and security fixes are backported to older major branches - so at a minimum, stay on the latest minor release of your branch.

This default only applies if nothing has disabled it. To make it explicit, set the following in wp-config.php:

define( 'WP_AUTO_UPDATE_CORE', 'minor' );

To update core immediately yourself, run this over SSH:

wp core update --minor

You can check whether your versions are affected by a known issue with the Find vulnerabilities tool.

Choose which plugins and themes update automatically

Since WordPress 5.5, you can turn automatic updates on or off for each plugin and theme individually, directly in WP Admin.

Plugins

In WP Admin, go to Plugins. Each plugin has an Automatic Updates column with an Enable auto-updates or Disable auto-updates link. Click the link for a plugin to toggle automatic updates for that plugin only.

To change several plugins at once, select them with the checkboxes, choose Enable Auto-updates or Disable Auto-updates from the Bulk actions dropdown at the top of the list, and click Apply.

Themes

In WP Admin, go to Appearance → Themes and click a theme to open its details. Use the Enable auto-updates or Disable auto-updates link to toggle automatic updates for that theme.

Disable WordPress core updates

We don't recommend this. Minor releases are security and bug fixes that shouldn't break anything, so we recommend letting them install automatically.

To disable automatic WordPress core updates, add the following line to your wp-config.php:

define( 'WP_AUTO_UPDATE_CORE', false );

Disable all plugin & theme updates via code

We don't recommend turning off updates wholesale. If you need to hold back specific plugins, exclude only those - see Exclude specific plugins via code below.

To turn off automatic updates for all plugins, add this to your active theme's functions.php file:

add_filter( 'auto_update_plugin', '__return_false' );

To turn off automatic updates for all themes, use this filter:

add_filter( 'auto_update_theme', '__return_false' );

Exclude specific plugins via code

If you manage auto-updates in code and want most plugins to update automatically while excluding a few, filter auto_update_plugin and return false for the plugins you want to skip. List the plugins by their file path (plugin-folder/plugin-file.php):

add_filter( 'auto_update_plugin', function ( $update, $item ) {
    $excluded = array(
        'woocommerce/woocommerce.php',
        'my-plugin/my-plugin.php',
    );

    if ( in_array( $item->plugin, $excluded, true ) ) {
        return false;
    }

    return $update;
}, 10, 2 );

The equivalent filter for themes is auto_update_theme, where $item->theme holds the theme slug.

Troubleshooting

If you can't enable automatic updates for plugins in WP Admin, the auto-update controls are usually being disabled elsewhere. Check the following:

Make sure the automatic_updater_disabled filter isn't in use and returning true (for example add_filter( 'automatic_updater_disabled', '__return_true' ); in a theme or plugin). This disables the entire auto-updater.
Make sure DISALLOW_FILE_MODS isn't set to true in your wp-config.php. When enabled, it blocks all file modifications - including plugin and theme updates - and hides the auto-update controls.