Title: When does it scan?
Last modified: August 22, 2016

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# When does it scan?

 *  Resolved [Rob7](https://wordpress.org/support/users/rob7/)
 * (@rob7)
 * [11 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/when-does-it-scan/)
 * Hi,
 * I have just installed the plugin. I have this option ticked “Enable automatic
   scheduled scans”.
 * When do the scans happen automatically? What is the difference between these 
   automatic scans with the free version and the scheduled scans with the premium
   version?
 * Thank you.
 * Rob.
 * [https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordfence/](https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordfence/)

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)

 *  [WFSupport](https://wordpress.org/support/users/wfsupport/)
 * (@wfsupport)
 * [11 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/when-does-it-scan/#post-5354876)
 * The scans are displayed on the scan schedule page and run every day at 11pm on
   my server. They will generally start within an hour of the scheduled time (to
   avoid overloading our servers). Yours might be different but you can tell by 
   the schedule below the option to enable them. The times and days will be greyed
   out but one box will be checked.
 * The premium version, among other things, will let you choose when and how much
   to scan. So, lets say you get middle of the night traffic only. You could set
   your scans to run during the day.
 * Does that help?
 * tim
 *  [WFSupport](https://wordpress.org/support/users/wfsupport/)
 * (@wfsupport)
 * [11 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/when-does-it-scan/#post-5354924)
 * To clarify, I just checked about the free scans. The way it works is that when
   you install the plugin, we create an entry into cron to schedule a scan, based
   on a random number. This is done because if we scheduled every free site to scan
   at 11pm, it would kill our scan servers here. I hope that answers everything 
   about the scans. Let me know if you have further questions.
 * tim
 *  Thread Starter [Rob7](https://wordpress.org/support/users/rob7/)
 * (@rob7)
 * [11 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/when-does-it-scan/#post-5354975)
 * Thanks Tim, that helps. I was just confused as to whether the free version does
   an automatic scan, or whether we had to either purchase the premium version or
   do manual scans.
 *  Thread Starter [Rob7](https://wordpress.org/support/users/rob7/)
 * (@rob7)
 * [11 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/when-does-it-scan/#post-5354977)
 * I have since noticed on the scan schedule page it tells us on the free version
   the time of the next scan. Thanks for your help.

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)

The topic ‘When does it scan?’ is closed to new replies.

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 * 4 replies
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [Rob7](https://wordpress.org/support/users/rob7/)
 * Last activity: [11 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/when-does-it-scan/#post-5354977)
 * Status: resolved