manifest / email / disable-admin-update-emails

Disable Admin Update Emails

Stops WordPress from emailing the site admin about core, plugin, and theme updates. Updates themselves still run as normal.

by Code For Broke, Inc. · github.com/codeforbroke/disable-admin-update-emails · website

★ 0stars

Install

Download source zip No release zip yet

This is the repository archive. It installs, but the folder name will carry the branch suffix and updates will not flow.

Install straight from GitHub with WP-CLI:

wp plugin install https://github.com/codeforbroke/disable-admin-update-emails/archive/refs/heads/main.zip

No built-in updater. New versions won't appear under Dashboard → Updates. Install new releases yourself, or let Git Updater track the repository.

Readme github.com/codeforbroke/disable-admin-update-emails ↗

Disable Update Emails

A single-file WordPress plugin that stops the site admin from being emailed about core, plugin, and theme updates. Updates themselves still run exactly as before; only the mail stops.

No settings page, no database options, no assets. Around 20 lines of filters.

Install

As a must-use plugin (recommended): copy disable-update-emails.php into wp-content/mu-plugins/. It loads automatically with no activation step and won't show up in the plugins list.

As a normal plugin: copy it into wp-content/plugins/ and activate it from the Plugins screen instead.

curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/codeforbroke/disable-admin-update-emails/main/disable-admin-update-emails.php

Requires WordPress 5.5+ and PHP 7.0+.

What it disables

Filter	Email it stops
`auto_core_update_send_email`	Result mail after a core auto-update
`auto_plugin_update_send_email`	Plugin auto-update digest
`auto_theme_update_send_email`	Theme auto-update digest
`send_core_update_notification_email`	"A new version of WordPress is available", sent when the site can't auto-update
`automatic_updates_send_debug_email`	Debug mail, only ever sent on development versions of core

Keeping failure alerts

auto_core_update_send_email gates every core result email, not just the successful ones. That includes the "URGENT: Your site may be down due to a failed update" message.

If you want the routine notices gone but the failures still delivered, remove the auto_core_update_send_email line and use this instead. It's included in the file as a commented block:

add_filter( 'auto_core_update_send_email', function ( $send, $type ) {
    return 'success' === $type ? false : $send;
}, PHP_INT_MAX, 2 );

The $type argument is success, fail, or critical.

Limitations

Only covers WordPress core's own mail. Third-party plugins that send their own update digests through wp_mail, such as Wordfence, Jetpack, or a managed host's monitoring dashboard, are unaffected. If update email keeps arriving after installing this, one of those is the source.
Doesn't touch Site Health or recovery-mode emails, which are deliberately left alone.
Doesn't touch admin notices or the update-count bubbles in the dashboard. This is email only.

License

GPL-2.0-or-later