How to Disable Automatic Plugin Updates in WordPress

Learn how to disable automatic plugin updates in WordPress to maintain control over your website’s stability and compatibility.

//Disable plugin updates
add_filter('auto_update_plugin','__return_false');

Quick Steps to Disable Automatic WordPress Plugin Updates

Follow these simple steps to disable automatic plugin updates on your WordPress site:

1. Install and activate the WPCodeBox plugin, then navigate to WPCodeBox 2 in your WordPress dashboard.
2. Copy the code snippet above and paste it into the WPCodeBox code editor.
3. Give your snippet a descriptive title (like “Disable Plugin Updates”), select PHP as the type, then click Save.
4. Enable the snippet by toggling the switch to the active position.
5. Verify the changes by navigating to the plugins page and checking that the Auto-updates column no longer shows the update option.

That’s it! Automatic plugin updates are now disabled on your WordPress site.

Disable Automatic Plugin Updates – Additional Information

Why You Might Want to Disable Automatic Updates

WordPress automatic plugin updates introduced with WordPress 5.5 in August 2020 let you keep plugins on the latest version without manual intervention. This might sound great until it causes more problems than it solves.

The biggest issue you’ll face is compatibility problems. Plugin developers can’t test their code against every possible combination of plugins and themes, so an automatic update might break something on your site.

If you’ve made custom changes to a plugin’s code, automatic updates will overwrite your modifications. This can be frustrating if you’ve spent time customizing a plugin to work perfectly for your needs.

Another concern is unwanted feature changes. Updates sometimes add new features or change how existing ones work, which can disrupt your workflow if you’re not prepared for the changes.

When You Should Consider Disabling Updates

Some websites are better off being manually updated to save yourself from future issues. These websites include:

• Business-critical website generating revenue: It’s better to test updates on these websites before applying them to your live site. This prevents unexpected downtime or broken features that could impact your revenue.
• Heavily customized sites: Disabling automatic updates lets you test compatibility on a staging environment first. This way, you can catch problems before they affect your actual website.

Keep in mind that you should still apply security updates manually. Disabling all automatic updates means you’ll need to stay on top of security patches yourself.