How to Auto-Update WordPress Plugins and Themes Bought on Envato

A plugin or theme bought on Envato does not appear in the WordPress updates screen the way a WordPress.org plugin does. Envato hosts the file, WordPress does not know about it, so nothing tells your site that a new version exists.

You then find out about an update the slow way: something breaks, and the fix turns out to have shipped three months ago.

Three ways to get updates

The author's own updater. Many premium plugins ship one — a licence key field in the settings, after which updates arrive in the normal WordPress screen. Look for it before reaching for anything else, because it is the only route the author supports.

The Envato Market plugin. Envato publishes a WordPress plugin that connects your site to your Envato account with a personal token and then offers updates for every purchase on it, in one place. It is the general answer when an item has no updater of its own.

By hand. Download the new archive, deactivate the old version, upload the new one. Tedious, but it is also the only method that never depends on a token or a licence server.

Before you update anything

• Back up first. A premium plugin update is not reversible from inside WordPress — there is no "previous version" button.
• Read the changelog. A release that touches prices, the cart or the checkout deserves a staging site before it touches a live shop.
• Update one thing at a time. Two plugins updated together and something breaks: you now have two suspects and no way to tell them apart.

Updates for FOX

The premium version of FOX updates through Freemius: enter your licence key once and new versions appear in the WordPress updates screen like any other plugin. The free version on WordPress.org updates the standard way, with no key at all.

If the update never arrives, the licence is usually the reason — see the questions on the downloads page.

Reference: our older walkthrough of the Envato updater is on the PluginUs.Net blog.