Title: Plugin auto update?
Last modified: August 19, 2016

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# Plugin auto update?

 *  [tcurdt](https://wordpress.org/support/users/tcurdt/)
 * (@tcurdt)
 * [17 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-auto-update/)
 * So I am running 2.6.1 and even after searching through the documentation I have
   no clue how the “upgrade automatically” feature of the plugin management is supposed
   to work. When I click on “upgrade” I get taken to a form to put in ftp credentials.
 * Why on earth would wordpress need to connect to a ftp server to get the plugins?
   I don’t even have ftp setup on my server. Why doesn’t it just download the plugins
   locally and then unzip them.
 * What am I missing here?
 * cheers
    — Torsten

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

 *  [stonegauge](https://wordpress.org/support/users/stonegauge/)
 * (@stonegauge)
 * [17 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-auto-update/#post-839571)
 * Well, you can’t upgrade the wordpress version unless you actually put the new
   version of WordPress on the server. That’s where FTP comes in — because files
   have to be transferred at one point or another (either you uploading the new 
   version manually or your wordpress install accessing WordPress.org and getting
   the new file itself and uploading it onto your server).
 * The upgrade function was developed specifically to not need to download files
   locally. If you want to download files locally and upload them manually — I think
   you’re going to have to handle that yourself.
 *  Thread Starter [tcurdt](https://wordpress.org/support/users/tcurdt/)
 * (@tcurdt)
 * [17 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-auto-update/#post-839651)
 * So you are saying there is FTP server access to wordpress.org and that’s what
   should go in there???
 * I am talking about plugins(!) here – not wordpress itself. Those plugins are 
   3rd Party. They have a HTTP URL and no FTP access.
 * Also I don’t really understand the reasoning behind the objective of “specifically
   to not need to download files locally”. Every HTTP upload (e.g. like the image
   upload) means creating files locally. Don’t understand what is supposed to be
   the problem with that.
 * At least it would be nice to have a “local folder” option instead of just the
   FTP transport.
 *  [Roy](https://wordpress.org/support/users/gangleri/)
 * (@gangleri)
 * [17 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-auto-update/#post-839652)
 * There’re several threads about the subject from the time 2.6 was just out. I 
   can’t get the built in updater to work either, but the [One Click Plugin Updater](http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/one-click-plugin-updater/)
   plugin works just fine. Of course that requires one plugin uploaded ‘the old 
   way’.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

The topic ‘Plugin auto update?’ is closed to new replies.

## Tags

 * [auto](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/auto/)
 * [autoupdate](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/autoupdate/)
 * [upgrade](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/upgrade/)

 * 3 replies
 * 3 participants
 * Last reply from: [Roy](https://wordpress.org/support/users/gangleri/)
 * Last activity: [17 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-auto-update/#post-839652)
 * Status: not resolved

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