Get notified when WordPress plugins need updating: a plugin you can build today

WordPress does show update counts in the admin, and it has had auto-updates for core and plugins since version 5.5. When auto-updates run, WordPress sends an email confirming what was applied. What it does not send is a pre-update notification: a heads-up that updates are waiting and nothing has been applied yet.

This matters because some sites cannot be updated without testing first. A staging workflow, a client contract requiring approval, or a plugin combination that has broken on previous updates are all reasons to leave auto-updates off and handle them manually. Once you turn off auto-updates, the only way to know about pending updates is to log in.

Plugins for this exist in the WordPress directory. WP Update Notifier has been around since 2012 and does the job. But its settings are minimal, it has not been updated recently, and building your own means you can extend it: add a threshold that only alerts after plugins are a week out of date, or trigger a webhook instead of an email. The build here gives you the full logic to start from.

On activation, the plugin registers a scheduled cron event that runs on a configurable interval, daily or weekly. When the event fires, it calls the WordPress update API to get fresh data: pending plugin updates, pending theme updates, and any available WordPress core update. If nothing is pending, no email is sent.

When updates are pending, it sends a plain-text email to the configured address listing each item and the version numbers involved, current and available. The subject line includes the site name and the update count so you can tell at a glance which site is writing and how many items need attention.

The settings page at Settings > Update Notifier has four fields: recipient email (defaults to the admin email), frequency (daily or weekly), and checkboxes for whether to include plugins, themes, and core in the check. A Send test email now button lets you verify delivery before waiting for the scheduled run.

The plugin runs on one site. It has no knowledge of any other site and no central place to aggregate reports. If you manage ten client sites, you need the plugin on each one, each emailing a separate digest. That is workable for a few sites and impractical beyond that.

It checks for available updates but does not apply them. The email links to wp-admin/update-core.php where you handle updates manually. Automated updates with rollback are a different class of tool.

WordPress cron fires when a visitor loads a page. On low-traffic sites or development environments, scheduled events may run late. You can test whether the event is firing with WP Crontrol. On hosting that restricts PHP cron, set up a real cron job that hits wp-cron.php on a schedule to ensure the digest arrives reliably.

MainWP is the right tool once you are managing more than a few sites and want a single view of all of them. It is self-hosted, installed on a separate WordPress site, free for the core dashboard, and connects to client sites through a companion plugin. The update view shows every site with pending updates in one place and lets you apply them in batch.

ManageWP is the same concept as a hosted service. No server to maintain, and the free tier covers basic update monitoring for a handful of sites. The paid tiers add automated backups, performance monitoring, and client reporting. If self-hosting a MainWP instance is not worth it for your use case, ManageWP is the practical alternative.

Both tools are meaningfully more than this plugin. If you are already spending real time on manual update rounds across multiple sites, the setup cost of either platform pays back quickly. This plugin is for the earlier stage: one or two client sites, wanting email visibility without committing to a management platform yet.