What is the Updates Menu in WordPress?

Updating WordPress is essential to your website’s security and performance. New versions of the core software, themes, and plugins bring bug fixes, new features, and security patches, and the Updates menu is the one screen where you can see and install all of them.

Inside the Updates screen

The Updates screen sits in the admin sidebar under Dashboard > Updates. It gathers every available update in one place: WordPress core, plugins, themes, and, on sites running a language other than English (United States), translations.

Plugins and themes are listed with checkboxes, so you can update one, several, or all of them at once, and the list covers inactive plugins and themes as well as active ones. When a new core version is available, one click installs it. When core is already current, the screen offers a Re-install button instead, which downloads and re-installs your current version.

Automatic vs. manual updates

You don’t have to click for everything, but what happens automatically isn’t the same on every site. Since WordPress 3.7, most sites have applied minor and security core releases automatically in the background, while major releases wait for your click. Sites installed on WordPress 5.6 or later go further: automatic updates are enabled for both minor and major core releases by default. Configuration beats defaults, though. Constants and filters set by hosts or developers take precedence, so your host may already be managing core updates for you.

To check your own site, open Dashboard > Updates. Since WordPress 5.6, that screen carries the core auto-update setting: a link reading “Enable automatic updates for all new versions of WordPress” and, once enabled, “Switch to automatic updates for maintenance and security releases only.” If a host or developer has locked the setting in code, the link may not appear at all. The full policy is documented in WordPress.org’s guide to updating WordPress.

Plugins and themes have their own controls. Since WordPress 5.5 (August 2020), the Plugins screen has an “Automatic update” column with a per-plugin toggle and a bulk action, and each theme’s detail view has an “Enable auto-updates” link. WordPress runs enabled auto-updates twice per day by default, shows the time until the next scheduled run on the Updates screen, and emails the site owner after both successful and failed attempts.

Back up before you update

Back up your database and files before updating core, plugins, or themes. WordPress prints this warning on the Updates screen itself: “Important: before upgrading, please backup your database and files.” A current backup is the difference between a quick restore and an afternoon of rebuilding. For major updates, test on a copy of your site first. Our guide How To Update WordPress Without Breaking Your Site walks through the full backup, test, and update sequence.

Updating third-party plugins and themes

Plugins and themes from outside the WordPress.org directory appear on the Updates screen only when the developer has built in an update mechanism that tells WordPress a new version exists. When there isn’t one, you can update manually by uploading the new version’s ZIP file in the admin, a feature added in WordPress 5.5 (released August 2020), or by copying the files over SFTP as a fallback.

When updates go wrong

WordPress puts your site into maintenance mode while an update runs, so visitors briefly see “Briefly unavailable for scheduled maintenance.” If the update is interrupted, the site can stay stuck on that message. The fix: delete the .maintenance file from your site’s root directory using an FTP client or your host’s file manager.

Two other failures are worth knowing about. Theme updates overwrite direct file edits, so customizations belong in a child theme. And plugin and theme auto-updates rely on WP-Cron, WordPress’s built-in task scheduler, so they can fail silently on some servers. If scheduled updates aren’t running, check Tools > Site Health for error messages.

Updates and your web host

Some of this work happens at the hosting level, and a host’s configuration can override WordPress’s own defaults. DreamHost web hosting plans include automatic WordPress core and security updates, and DreamPress, our managed WordPress hosting, adds 1-click staging so you can test new plugins, themes, and code before pushing changes live. Whoever hosts your site, find out which updates your host applies for you and which ones are yours to run from the Updates screen.

Next step: turn on auto-updates for the plugins and themes you trust, confirm your backups are running, and keep How To Update WordPress Without Breaking Your Site handy for the next major release.