How to update WordPress plugins and themes

It is very important to keep WordPress plugins and themes updated. Security issues that can lead to the compromise of your website are often discovered and are patched through updates. Keeping your themes and plugins updated is a very easy task and there are several ways to do it. 

Update directly from WordPress Admin

The easiest method to update plugins and themes is directly from the WordPress Admin panel. 

In the top toolbar and on the main dashboard, you will see the total number of updates you have.

If you click on either of these icons you will be taken to the WordPress updates page. From here, you can update your plugins, themes, and apply any WordPress updates. Just click the boxes for each plugin or theme you want to update and click the update button. The updates will automatically download and install.

If you're using premium plugins or themes, you will need to have an active support subscription to download updates for that theme or plugin. Contact the developer if you have any questions.

Use WordPress Toolkit in cPanel

Login to cPanel, either through https://my.nodespace.com or from your domain. Once you are in cPanel, click on WP Toolkit in the side menu, directly under Tools.

From here, find your WordPress site. If you don't see it listed, click on the Scan button. Once you see your site, check if plugins and/or themes have a linl that says "Install plugin updates" or "Install theme updates", respectively. 

Click on the link to see what plugins and themes need updates.

If you would like to make sure that the updates won't break your site, toggle Smart Update. Smart Update is a feature that will clone your site and test before and after installing plugins for errors or broken content. You can learn more about this feature here.

Automatic updates

The best updates are the ones you don't have to think about! To enable automatic updates, login to cPanel either through https://my.nodespace.com or from your domain. Once you are in cPanel, click on WP Toolkit in the side menu, directly under Tools.

From here, find your WordPress site. If you don't see it listed, click on the Scan button. Once you see your site, click on the Autoupdate Settings link. 

In the Update Settings pane, select the update options that would work best for your site. At minimum, we recommend at least automatically installing minor security updates for WordPress. Ideally, you would want all plugins and themes to update automatically as well. However you may have a plugin that you need to keep on a certain version for compatibility. Tweak these settings for your needs. If you're not sure, we recommend manually updating plugins and themes for awhile. If the plugins and themes you use seem to be stable after a couple updates, then turn on automatic updates.

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  • Article ID: 363
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