Overview
The dashboard lets you manage every plugin on your WordPress site in one place, without logging in to WordPress admin. You can activate and deactivate plugins, apply updates, and reinstall or roll back a plugin to a previous version.
These tools are most useful when you need to troubleshoot a problem, such as a plugin update that breaks a feature or an error that locks you out of WordPress admin. Changes take effect on your live site immediately.
In this article, you will find step-by-step instructions for each plugin action in the dashboard, and an overview of common situations where they help.
Prerequisites
Before making changes to your plugins:
Backup: Create a backup of the site so you can restore it if anything goes wrong. See Creating and managing backups.
Staging site (recommended): If you have a staging site, test plugin changes there first. Deactivating or rolling back plugins on a live site can temporarily remove features your visitors rely on.
How to manage plugins
Open the Plugins tab
Click Sites in the main menu, click Manage site next to your site, click WordPress in the left-hand menu, and select the Plugins tab.
The tab lists every plugin installed on your site, with its status, installed version, and any available update. Use the filter dropdown to show only active, inactive, must-use, or drop-in plugins, or use Search to find a specific plugin.
Activate or deactivate plugins
Step 1: Select plugins
Select the checkbox next to each plugin you want to change. To select every plugin, use the checkbox in the column header.
Step 2: Apply the action
Open Bulk actions and select Activate or Deactivate.
Tip:
Before deactivating several plugins at once, filter by Active plugins and note which are active, so you can restore them afterward.
Update a plugin
Step 1: Start the update
Click Update available next to the plugin.
Step 2: Confirm the update
Review the installed version and the version you’re updating to, then click Confirm.
Reinstall or roll back a plugin
Step 1: Open the Change version window
Click the Change version icon next to the plugin’s version number.
Step 2: Select a version
Select a version from the list of available releases, then click the button to reinstall or roll back.
Important:
Older plugin versions may contain security vulnerabilities that later releases fixed. Treat a rollback as a temporary measure, and update again once a fixed version is available.
Using these tools to troubleshoot
A plugin update broke something: Roll back to the previous version while the plugin’s developer releases a fix
You suspect a plugin is causing an issue: Deactivate plugins to see whether the issue goes away, then reactivate them one at a time to narrow down which one is responsible
You can’t access WordPress admin: Deactivate the plugin causing the problem from the dashboard to regain access
A plugin’s files may be damaged: Reinstall the current version to replace them
To see which plugin is behind an error, turn on WP_DEBUG. The error message usually names the plugin. See How to enable and use WP_DEBUG.
If you’re not sure what’s causing an issue, or deactivating plugins doesn’t resolve it, contact our support team. We can help you investigate.
Conclusion
The Plugins tab gives you quick control over your site’s plugins, even when WordPress admin is unavailable. For anything beyond a straightforward fix, our support team is available 24/7.