WordPress users know that WordPress updates are a double-edged sword. On the one hand, they can increase security and make new features available but on the other hand updates can lead to the compatibility issues or even worse, a broken website. What is SafeUpdates I’m Danish Naseer, Community Manager at Cloudways. and today I will be talking about how you can confidently automate the process of WordPress updates with Cloudways SafeUpdates without ever worrying about breaking your site. Let’s jump right in! SafeUpdates brings together automation and efficiency in a single tool for WordPress maintenance. It does not just automatically detect updates and take backups; It also efficiently tests all updates away from your production environment Throughout the process SafeUpdates uses strong algorithms to prevent site from breaking. Here’s how the SafeUpdates process works SafeUpdates actively monitors your website for when any new core, plugin and theme updates become available. Before performing an update, at a scheduled time or on-demand, It always takes a fresh backup. This backup is different from your regular Cloudways backup. Next, SafeUpdates spins up a temporary staging site to perform and test updates. It tests both in staging and live environment. Through visual regression testing, it compresses the staging and production site before and after updates. Beyond visual regression testing, SafeUpdates also tests for performance and HTML accuracy and ensures there are no browser or network errors. Once everything has been checked it updates your main site and runs tests one final time. In a rare case where SafeUpdates has to abort an update on a production site it automatically rolls back to the fresh backup and emails you details about the issues. Your WordPress site stays safe throughout the entire process. Activate SafeUpdates Step 1: Activate SafeUpdates First you need to log in to the Cloudways Platform. From the Cloudways dashboard click on Cloudways Flexible and then click on My Servers. Another way to do it is to click on the View all Servers link from the dashboard. Next, choose the server where your WordPress application is deployed. Click www. Next, choose your application name. From the left menu bar select SafeUpdates. Next click Activate SafeUpdates. Configure Safe Updates Step 2: Configure SafeUpdates After enabling SafeUpdates the next step is to configure it. You can run updates both on-demand and scheduled You can also check the history of updates executed by SafeUpdates. Let’s take a look at how to set up scheduled and on-demand updates. Scheduled Updates Scheduled updates means SafeUpdates automatically runs updates at a scheduled time. By scheduling updates you unlock the true potential of SafeUpdates, since you don’t have to manually check or manage application updates. Here’s how you set this up. Navigate to the Schedule tab and Enable Automatic Updates. Select the day on which SafeUpdates runs scheduled updates. Choose a suitable time. The time zone is UTC and the updates will take place within the 6-hour window. Click Custom Update List to select which applications essentials are automatically updated when updates are available. Enter the email where you wish to receive your application updates. By default it will be sent to your Cloudways registered email address. Enable Pre-Notification if you wish to be notified in advance when SafeUpdates schedules updates for your application. Once enabled you will be notified 24 hours before the update. Enable Successful Update if you wish to be notified when updates are successful. Enable Aborted Update if you wish to be notified when updates are aborted for any reason. Finally, click save click save changes. Now that we’ve talked about scheduled updates, let’s look at on-demand updates. OnDemand Updates On-demand updates are when you manually request SafeUpdates to begin an update. We recommend using on-demand during off-peak hours to avoid any disruption. Here’s how you can start on-demand updates: on demand updates Under the On-Demand tab, select the items you wish to update. Next, click Update. SafeUpdates will start the update process and you can carry on with other work. Later, you can review the history to check the status of the updates and whether they were successful or aborted. Backup and Restore As mentioned, SafeUpdates also backs up your website before executing updates It does this so it can always roll back to the previous version in case an error occurs after updating your production site. You also have the option to restore your website to the previous version if you are not satisfied with the updates. For more details about backups and updates, you can watch our previous video by clicking the i button. Under History, you can find the history of updates executed by SafeUpdates and whether they were successful or aborted. SafeUpdates maintains the last 30 days of update history for each application. You can click View Details in the logs to view more information. How to Deactivate SafeUpdates You can click Deactivate to remove your SafeUpdates subscription from any particular application. SafeUpdates Errors Each SafeUpdates error has an error code, so you can easily troubleshoot the errors you encounter. you can check the link in the description below to learn more about these errors That’s it! I hope you’ve now learned how SafeUpdates can save your time and safely deploy WordPress updates. If you have any questions, feel free to comment below. Subscribe to the channel to get more helpful Cloudways tutorials. Thank you and see you in the next video!