Force Update Check for Plugins and Themes

Description

Force Update Check for Plugins and Themes forces WordPress to run a theme and plugin update check whenever you visit the WordPress updates page (/wp-admin/update-core.php).

Force Update Check Features:

  • Automatic checks (no need to click the “check again” button)
  • No configurations or settings page
  • Eliminates action for developer or QA
  • Get new features and security patches faster

How it works

By default, WordPress checks for updates approximately every 12 hours. This plugin clears the theme/plugin updates cache and triggers a new update check each time the updates page is visited.

When activated on your site it runs automatically and has no configurations page or settings to worry about. Each time you visit the updates page WordPress will run a new check.

Force Update Check for Plugins and Themes is specifically a plugin and theme check and will not force a WordPress core update check.

Third-party plugins and themes that do not update from the WordPress.org repository may not be cleared by the Force Update Check for Plugins and Themes plugin. If the plugin or theme does not update via the WordPress.org repository, and forcing an update check with this plugin does not work, check with your plugin or theme developer for a force check option.

Looking for more simple developer tools?

WP Zone has built a whole bunch of add-ons, services, plugins and themes and are committed to quality code that follows WordPress best practices. Check out some of our other developer favorites and don’t forget to leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ review to help others in the community decide.

Installation

  1. Upload the plugin files to the /wp-content/plugins/force-update-check-for-plugins-and-themes directory, or install the plugin through the WordPress plugins screen directly.
  2. Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ screen in WordPress

FAQ

What do I need to do to run update checker?

Just activate the plugin

Is there a “pro” version or ads?

No and no. This free plugin was built with love and shared in hopes others won’t need to reinvent the wheel. It is a tool for our development team that we use regularly and wanted to make it available to other developers, contributors, and users.

Where is the settings and configurations page?

There are no settings to fiddle with. When you activate Force Update Check for Plugins and Themes it overrides the default check setting and forces WordPress to look for an update every time you visit the updates page. Nothing fancy…it just works.

Reviews

Eost 29, 2024
As a plugin developer, one thing I do occasionally is test plugin updates after I’ve released a new version. Without this plugin, after I release an update, whether for a custom plugin or for a plugin hosted on WordPress.org, the message to update the plugin doesn’t appear right away. Now, whenever I need to force it to check for a new update, I install this plugin, and it does the trick every time. I don’t know what I would do without it.
Eost 22, 2021 1 reply
Love this little plugin. Does exactly as it says it should.
Read all 4 reviews

Contributors & Developers

“Force Update Check for Plugins and Themes” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.

Contributors

“Force Update Check for Plugins and Themes” has been translated into 1 locale. Thank you to the translators for their contributions.

Translate “Force Update Check for Plugins and Themes” into your language.

Interested in development?

Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.

Changelog

1.0.1, March 9th, 2021
Update tested up to

1.0.0, January 28th, 2021
Initial Release