How to Stop Automatic Updates in WordPress with One Click

The problem with WordPress automatic updates

WordPress introduced automatic background updates in version 3.7. The idea was sound — keep sites patched without relying on site owners to apply updates by hand. For small personal blogs, it works fine most of the time.

For anyone managing client sites, running WooCommerce stores, or operating sites where uptime matters, automatic updates tell a different story.

What can go wrong:

• Major version upgrades ship with database schema changes, new default behaviors, and deprecated functions. Plugins that worked yesterday might throw errors today.
• Plugin and theme updates triggered automatically can introduce bugs, change layouts, or conflict with other plugins.
• Updates during peak traffic can cause temporary downtime while the update runs, especially on shared hosting.
• No rollback — if an update breaks something at 3am, your site sits broken until someone notices and fixes it.

The WordPress ecosystem moves fast. Plugin authors push updates frequently, and not every release is well-tested against every combination of other plugins and themes. Automatic updates mean you’re trusting that every update, from every source, will work perfectly on your specific site configuration.

The WordPress constant: AUTOMATIC_UPDATER_DISABLED

WordPress controls automatic updates through the AUTOMATIC_UPDATER_DISABLED constant in wp-config.php. When set to true, it disables all automatic background updates — core, plugins, themes, and translations. This is one of several WordPress debug and configuration constants that control site behaviour.

To set it manually, you’d SSH into your server, open wp-config.php, and add:

define('AUTOMATIC_UPDATER_DISABLED', true);

Then repeat that for every WordPress site you manage. And remember which ones you’ve changed. And make sure nobody reverts the change during a WordPress upgrade.

For a single site, it’s a two-minute task. For 30 sites, it’s a headache. For 200 sites, it’s a full afternoon.

How mySites.guru disables automatic updates in one click

mySites.guru’s WordPress Configuration audit reads AUTOMATIC_UPDATER_DISABLED from wp-config.php on every connected site during each snapshot. If auto-updates are still enabled, the audit flags it.

Click the fix button, and the connector plugin sets the constant to true on the remote site. The next snapshot confirms it stuck. If someone (or something) reverts the change later, the audit catches it again.

You can see the auto-update status of every WordPress site on one screen. No individual admin logins, no spreadsheets. If you’re managing multiple WordPress sites, this alone saves hours of repetitive work.

A better approach: minor updates only

Disabling all automatic updates is one extreme. The other extreme is leaving everything on auto-pilot. There’s a middle ground that works better for most professional setups.

WordPress has a separate constant called WP_AUTO_UPDATE_CORE that lets you allow only minor (security/patch) updates while blocking major version upgrades.

Setting it to 'minor' means WordPress will still auto-apply security patches (like 6.4.1 to 6.4.2) but won’t jump from 6.4 to 6.5 without your involvement.

You can use both constants together for fine-grained control:

1. Disable the full auto-updater to stop WordPress from updating plugins and themes automatically
2. Enable minor-only core updates to still receive security patches

This gives you the safety net of security patches without the risk of untested major upgrades breaking your sites.

Managing updates deliberately

Disabling automatic updates isn’t the same as ignoring updates. You still need to keep WordPress, plugins, and themes current — you’re just choosing to do it on your terms.

With mySites.guru, you can:

• See available updates across all connected sites in one place
• Spot which sites are behind on core, plugin, or theme versions
• Apply updates when you’re ready, not when WordPress decides to
• Get vulnerability alerts when a plugin has a known security issue

Keeping plugins up to date also reduces your attack surface. Outdated plugins are the number one way WordPress sites get compromised, and mySites.guru’s vulnerability scanner cross-references your installed versions against threat databases twice a day.

The workflow shifts from “hope nothing breaks overnight” to “review what’s available, test if needed, apply when ready.”

Preventing unwanted plugin installs

Controlling updates is half the equation. The other half is making sure nobody installs untested plugins on your managed sites in the first place.

If you give clients wp-admin access, there’s nothing stopping them from installing a random plugin that conflicts with your carefully maintained stack. mySites.guru can detect and block unauthorized plugin installs so you stay in control of what runs on each site.

Who should disable automatic updates?

If you manage WordPress sites for clients or run sites where reliability matters, controlling updates is non-negotiable. Specifically:

• Agencies managing client portfolios — a broken client site at 2am is a support ticket and a reputation hit
• WooCommerce stores — a plugin conflict during checkout means lost revenue
• Membership sites — downtime means paying members can’t access content
• High-traffic sites — updates during peak hours cause unnecessary load

For personal blogs with no revenue impact, automatic updates are probably fine. For everything else, take control. If you’re juggling more than a handful of sites, read our guide on how to manage multiple WordPress sites like a pro for a broader look at the tools and workflows that make this manageable.

Further reading

• Upgrading WordPress — Automatic Background Updates — Official WordPress documentation on how background updates work and how to configure them.
• wp-config.php Constants — Full reference for every constant you can set in wp-config.php, including update-related ones.
• WP_Automatic_Updater Class Reference — Developer documentation for the class that handles all automatic background updates in WordPress core.