Scheduled Plugin Updates

Scheduled Plugin Updates let you choose exactly when your site checks for and installs plugin updates. This gives you full control over timing and helps minimize potential disruptions.

In this guide, you’ll learn how to set up and manage scheduled updates to keep your site secure, stable, and running the latest features on your terms.

About scheduled updates

Scheduled updates give you peace of mind by ensuring plugin updates happen at a time that works best for you. When the scheduled time arrives, the system checks for available updates for all plugins included in your schedule.

If updates are found, the process begins with a health check to confirm your site is stable. Plugins are then updated one at a time, with a new health check after each update to verify everything is working properly. If an issue is detected, the system automatically rolls back the update, restores the previous version of the plugin, and sends you an email notification by default.

You can schedule plugin updates on WordPress.com in two ways: individually for each site using site-level controls, or across multiple sites using the multisite update scheduler.

Site-level updates

Site-level plugin updates can be configured on the Plugins → Scheduled Updates admin screen of each WordPress.com site on a Business or Commerce plan.

Schedule a plugin update

You can choose to schedule updates for individual plugins at different days and times, or set all plugins to update at the same time.

Create a new schedule by following these steps:

1. Visit your site’s dashboard.
2. Navigate to Plugins → Scheduled Updates.
3. Click the “Add new schedule” button and select your desired update frequency: Daily or Weekly.

4. Choose the plugins you’d like to include in the schedule. Check the “Select all” box to update all of your plugins on your schedule.

5. Enter the URL paths you want to test (optional). By default, your schedule will run a health check on your front page to make sure that the plugin update didn’t cause any site stability issues. In this section, you can add up to five additional URL paths on your site to test.
6. Click Create to activate your schedule.

You can create another schedule for plugin updates by clicking the “New Schedule” button and following the steps outlined above to make the schedule.

Temporarily pause a scheduled update by toggling the setting under Active off for each scheduled update.

Configure notification settings

You can configure notification settings to receive an email when an update is successful or fails. You will receive email notifications at your account email address. By default, you will receive notifications for both successful and failed updates. 

You can change the notification settings by following these steps:

1. Visit your site’s dashboard.
2. Navigate to Plugins → Scheduled Updates.
3. Click the “Notification settings” button.
4. Check the box next to the notification setting you want to modify and click the Save button. 

Edit or cancel a scheduled update

You can edit an existing scheduled update or delete it entirely by following these steps:

1. Visit your site’s dashboard.
2. Navigate to Plugins → Scheduled Updates.
3. Click the ellipsis icon (⋮) to the right of the schedule you want to modify. 
4. Choose the Edit option to alter the date/time, plugins to update, and other details. 
5. Alternatively, choose the Remove option to delete the scheduled update.

View update logs

You can view the update logs for each scheduled plugin update. To view the logs for a scheduled plugin update, follow these steps:

1. Visit your site’s dashboard.
2. Navigate to Plugins → Scheduled Updates.
3. Click the ellipsis icon (⋮) to the right of the schedule for which you want to view the logs. 
4. Click the Logs option from the dropdown menu. 

In the Logs, you can view when an update started and completed and any additional details about the update. 

Multisite updates

If you manage multiple WordPress.com sites, you can use the multisite plugin update scheduler to set up scheduled plugin updates for all of them in one place.

Schedule a plugin update

You may access the multisite Scheduled Updates tool here or by following these steps:

1. Log into WordPress.com.
2. Click the W logo in the top-left corner to view all sites. 
3. Click Plugins.
4. Click “Scheduled updates“.
5. Click “New schedule“.

6. Select one or more sites where you want to schedule plugin updates. You can apply a schedule to a single site or to multiple sites at once.
7. Choose the plugins you’d like to include in the schedule. Check the “Select all” box to update all of your plugins on your schedule.

8. Select your desired update frequency: Daily or Weekly.
9. Click Create to activate your schedule.

While you can select multiple sites at once, the multisite view does not support setting custom URL paths for health checks. If you need to configure specific paths to test, use the site-level scheduling controls instead.

Edit or cancel a scheduled update

You can edit an existing scheduled update or delete it entirely by following these steps:

1. Log into WordPress.com.
2. Click the W logo in the top-left corner to view all sites. 
3. Click Plugins.
4. Click “Scheduled updates“.
5. Click the ellipsis icon (⋮) to the right of the schedule you want to modify. 
6. Choose the Edit option to alter the date/time, plugins to update, and other details. 
7. Alternatively, choose the Remove option to delete the scheduled update.