“How do I auto-update WordPress plugins and themes?”, “Which plugins are available to auto-update my plugins and themes?” Users ask questions like these very often. And why not, as the plugins and themes updates are so frequent.

If you run a small website with 5 to 10 plugins, you can do it manually without any problems. But imagine if you’re running a big e-commerce website or a popular blogging website with more than 30 plug-ins. It’s going to be a tiring job to update each of these plugins and themes.

Updating plugins and themes is very important. The latest updates provide performance improvements to your plugins and theme, add the latest features and fix any issues.

The auto-update has been added with WordPress 3.7. With this release, you can configure the wp-config.php file to allow automatic WordPress updates.

In this blog, we will talk about 7 WordPress auto-update plugins that can handle updates of your plugins, themes, and WordPress core automatically. Such plugins are also useful when you’re busy with other activities and can’t access the site.

Check each of these plugins to choose the best plugin for your website.

The Auto Updater plugin can handle all your updates for plugins, themes & WordPress core updates. It’s an open-source plugin with over 6000 active installs.

Auto Updater checks every 12 hours for updates. Updates will then be downloaded automatically.

Features

Easy to setup

Enable or disable auto-update for plugins, themes & WordPress major updates

The changelog shows all the update details of the theme and plugins

Companion Auto Update plugin is one of the most popular auto-update plugins on our list. It has over 60,000 active installs. This plugin allows the background auto-updating for all plugins, themes and WordPress core (major and minor).

Features

Control auto-update for plugins, themes, WordPress core (major and minor updates)

Email notifications (when updates available & updates finished)

Disable auto-update for certain plugins

Scheduling updates for updating and notifications

Update log to check updates history

Simple plugin to auto-update plugins, themes, and core WordPress updates. It has over 1,000 active installs.

Features

Light-weight

No settings required

Just install and activate

Auto-update themes, plugins and WordPress core updates

Easy Update Manager is another popular plugin with over 2,00,000 active installs. You can configure it from the WordPress dashboard Updates Options. The main button to enable or disable all updates in this plugin. It comes with a long list of options for configuration.

Features

Manually enable or disable updates for WordPress core, plugins, themes, translation

Updates related Email notifications (Multiple Email addresses can be added)

Enable or disable WordPress version in the footer

Enable or disable updates for individual plugins & themes

Logs to check the history of all updates

Exclude users from making changes to the app

The choice to restore all settings

A simple plugin to automatically update core (major and minor releases), plugins and themes. It has over 10,000 active installs. As the name suggests it’s a simple updater plugin without any customization options.

Features

Easy install and activation

Updates WordPress/themes/plugins automatically

Sends an email notification by default

Updater plugin automatically updates installed plugins, themes, and WordPress website core. It has over 8,000 active installs. Just download, install, configure, and forget about frequent updates, as this will handle all.

The settings panel will be visible after activating the plugin. And you can easily customize its options.

Features

Enable or disable auto-update from the Settings of the plugin

You can check or uncheck updates for plugins, themes, WordPress & translations

Set the custom hours duration to check for updates and download them

Email notifications (enter multiple emails using commas)

The last plugin in our list is WP Auto Updater, It has over 3,000 active installs. This WordPress plugin helps you to automatically update WordPress Core, Themes, Plugins and Translations. Version control in WordPress Core makes automatic updates safer.

Features

Gives you the options to auto-update between WordPress minor updates/ major updates etc.

Choose auto/manual updates for themes, plugins, and translations

Schedule updates check (twice a day to monthly)

Manually disable updates for any themes or plugins

Conclusion

We’ve come to the end of the blog post. WordPress Auto-Update plugins can be really helpful while auto-updating themes, plugins, WordPress core, and translations. Hence it can save a lot of our time and effort.

I hope you enjoyed the post. And please feel free to share your favorite auto-update plugins from the list.

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