Title: update_postmeta
Published: April 25, 2014
Last modified: May 20, 2026

---

# do_action( ‘update_postmeta’, int $meta_id, int $object_id, string $meta_key, mixed $meta_value )

## In this article

 * [Parameters](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/hooks/update_postmeta/?output_format=md#parameters)
 * [Source](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/hooks/update_postmeta/?output_format=md#source)
 * [Related](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/hooks/update_postmeta/?output_format=md#related)
 * [Changelog](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/hooks/update_postmeta/?output_format=md#changelog)

[ Back to top](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/hooks/update_postmeta/?output_format=md#wp--skip-link--target)

Fires immediately before updating a post’s metadata.

## 󠀁[Parameters](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/hooks/update_postmeta/?output_format=md#parameters)󠁿

 `$meta_id`int

ID of metadata entry to update.

`$object_id`int

Post ID.

`$meta_key`string

Metadata key.

`$meta_value`mixed

Metadata value. This will be a PHP-serialized string representation of the value
if the value is an array, an object, or itself a PHP-serialized string.

## 󠀁[Source](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/hooks/update_postmeta/?output_format=md#source)󠁿

    ```php
    do_action( 'update_postmeta', $meta_id, $object_id, $meta_key, $meta_value );
    ```

[View all references](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/files/wp-includes/meta.php/)
[View on Trac](https://core.trac.wordpress.org/browser/tags/7.0/src/wp-includes/meta.php#L320)
[View on GitHub](https://github.com/WordPress/wordpress-develop/blob/7.0/src/wp-includes/meta.php#L320-L320)

## 󠀁[Related](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/hooks/update_postmeta/?output_format=md#related)󠁿

| Used by | Description | 
| [update_metadata_by_mid()](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/functions/update_metadata_by_mid/)`wp-includes/meta.php` |

Updates metadata by meta ID.

  | 
| [update_metadata()](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/functions/update_metadata/)`wp-includes/meta.php` |

Updates metadata for the specified object. If no value already exists for the specified object ID and metadata key, the metadata will be added.

  |

## 󠀁[Changelog](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/hooks/update_postmeta/?output_format=md#changelog)󠁿

| Version | Description | 
| [2.9.0](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/since/2.9.0/) | Introduced. |

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