Developry — WP Hidden Plugins

Hide and disable unused WordPress plugins for later use without deleting them.

Description

Developry WP Hidden Plugins allows you to temporarily hide inactive WordPress plugins by renaming their directories with a dot prefix, making them invisible to WordPress without permanently deleting them. This is useful for:

• Keeping plugins you might need later without cluttering your plugins list
• Testing plugin conflicts by temporarily hiding suspected plugins
• Maintaining a clean plugins list in production while keeping backup plugins available
• Managing large plugin collections more efficiently

Features

• Bulk Hide/Show Actions: Hide or show multiple plugins at once using WordPress bulk actions
• Hidden Status Filter: View all hidden plugins in a separate filtered view
• Security Features:
  • Capability checks ensure only administrators can hide/show plugins
  • Optional password protection for additional security
  • Prevents hiding of active plugins and itself
• Error Handling: Comprehensive error logging and validation
• Internationalization: Full i18n support for translations
• WordPress Standards: Follows WordPress coding standards and best practices

Installation

From GitHub

1. Download the latest release from GitHub
2. Extract the zip file
3. Upload the developry-wp-hidden-plugins folder to /wp-content/plugins/
4. Activate the plugin through the 'Plugins' menu in WordPress

Manual Installation

1. Clone this repository:

   git clone https://github.com/krasenslavov/developry-wp-hidden-plugins.git

2. Navigate to your WordPress plugins directory
3. Copy the plugin folder to /wp-content/plugins/
4. Activate the plugin through the 'Plugins' menu in WordPress

Usage

Hiding Plugins

1. Go to Plugins in your WordPress admin
2. Select the inactive plugins you want to hide
3. Choose Make Hidden from the bulk actions dropdown
4. Click Apply
5. The selected plugins will be hidden and moved to the "Hidden" status

Note: You can only hide inactive plugins. Active plugins and the Hidden Plugins plugin itself cannot be hidden.

Showing Plugins

1. Go to Plugins in your WordPress admin
2. Click on Hidden status filter to view hidden plugins
3. Select the plugins you want to make visible again
4. Choose Make Visible from the bulk actions dropdown
5. Click Apply
6. The plugins will be restored and visible in the main plugins list

Password Protection (Optional)

For additional security, you can set up password protection:

1. Go to Settings > Hidden Plugins
2. Enter a password in the "Admin Password" field
3. Click Save Settings

When a password is set, only administrators with the manage_options capability can hide or show plugins.

To remove password protection, leave the password field blank and save.

How It Works

The plugin works by renaming plugin directories:

• Hiding: Renames plugin-name/ to .plugin-name/ (adds a dot prefix)
• Showing: Renames .plugin-name/ back to plugin-name/ (removes the dot prefix)

This makes plugins invisible to WordPress without deleting any files. The plugin keeps track of hidden plugins in the WordPress options table.

Requirements

• WordPress 5.0 or higher
• PHP 7.0 or higher
• User must have activate_plugins capability (Administrator role)

Limitations

• Cannot hide active plugins
• Cannot hide itself
• Only works with plugins in their own directories (single-file plugins are skipped)
• File system must allow renaming directories

Development

Running Tests

This plugin includes PHPUnit tests. To run them:

1. Set up the WordPress test environment:

   bash bin/install-wp-tests.sh wordpress_test root '' localhost latest

2. Run PHPUnit:

   phpunit

Or set the WP_TESTS_DIR environment variable:

export WP_TESTS_DIR=/path/to/wordpress-tests-lib
phpunit

Filters

The plugin provides filters for customization:

dwphp_restore_on_deactivation

Controls whether hidden plugins are restored when the plugin is deactivated.

add_filter( 'dwphp_restore_on_deactivation', '__return_true' );

Default: false

Security

• Capability checks ensure only administrators can hide/show plugins
• Active plugins cannot be hidden
• The plugin itself cannot be hidden
• All input is sanitized and validated
• All output is properly escaped
• Error logging for troubleshooting

Support

For bugs, feature requests, or contributions, please visit:

• GitHub: https://github.com/krasenslavov/developry-wp-hidden-plugins
• Issues: https://github.com/krasenslavov/developry-wp-hidden-plugins/issues

Author

Krasen Slavov

• Website: https://krasenslavov.com/
• Company: https://developry.com/

License

This plugin is licensed under the GPL v2 or later.

Copyright 2018 - 2025 Developry Ltd.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License, version 2, as
published by the Free Software Foundation.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

Changelog

1.0.0

• Complete rewrite with security improvements
• Added settings page for password configuration
• Implemented proper error handling and logging
• Added PHPUnit tests
• Added internationalization support
• Added activation/deactivation hooks
• Improved code structure and WordPress standards compliance
• Added comprehensive documentation

0.1.0

• Initial release
• Basic hide/show functionality