Disable Automatic Update Emails

A tiny WordPress plugin that stops the "your site has been updated automatically" emails for core, plugins, and themes — while still emailing you when an automatic update fails. Automatic updates themselves keep running exactly as before.

Install

1. Copy disable-automatic-update-emails.php into wp-content/plugins/ (or into wp-content/mu-plugins/ if you want it always on and unlistable).
2. Activate it under Plugins in wp-admin (not needed for mu-plugins).

There are no settings — activating it is the whole configuration.

What it does

Plugin and theme results arrive as one email per batch rather than one per item, so the decision is per batch: if anything in the run failed, the email goes out.

Requirements

WordPress 5.5+ (for the plugin/theme auto-update filters), PHP 7.0+.

Updates

Installed copies update themselves from this repo's GitHub Releases. The plugin declares an Update URI header, which tells WordPress (5.8+) to skip WordPress.org and ask the plugin itself — it checks the latest release and offers the zip attached to it. The result appears on the Plugins screen like any other update, and installs itself if auto-updates are enabled for it.

Two things this does not do: it does not update on a push to main, and it cannot bootstrap itself. The first install on a site is always a manual zip upload.

Shipping a new version

1. Edit the code, and bump the Version: header in disable-automatic-update-emails.php.

2. Commit and push to main.

3. Tag the release and push the tag:

   git tag v1.2.1 && git push origin v1.2.1

The Release workflow lints the file, refuses the tag if it disagrees with the Version: header, builds the correctly-structured zip, and publishes it as a release asset. Sites pick it up within about 12 hours (the plugin caches the release lookup for that long; deactivating and reactivating clears it).

Enabling auto-updates on a site

Plugins → find Disable Automatic Update Emails → Enable auto-updates. Fittingly, if one of its own updates ever fails, this plugin will let that failure email through.

If the auto-update controls are missing

WordPress only shows "Enable auto-updates" for plugins it has update information about. The plugin therefore always answers core's update check with the current release — including when that release is not newer — so it stays in core's no_update list. If the link still isn't there, the cached update data is simply stale: go to Dashboard → Updates → Check again.