WordPress, hide a plugin from the installed plugins list

Introduction

If you’ve ever created a plugin with custom functionality outside of what would normally go inside a theme but don’t want the client to have the ability to deactivate it, what do you do? As of WordPress 6.3 there is a filter (plugins_list) that can achieve this by hiding a plugin (or plugins) from the installed plugin list.

Examples of what it will look like

Following are the standard and must-use / mu plugin screens with all plugins and their corresponding versions with two items ‘hidden’ (filtered out.)

Example code to hide plugins

Below is the code to hide ‘standard’ and ‘must-use’ plugins using the PHP function unset(). Read the section about finding the plugins basename below.

A plugin basename consists of the plugin directory, a forward slash, and then the name of the PHP file containing the plugin headers.

function barrd_filter_plugins_list( $plugins ) {
  unset(
    // Standard plugins.
    $plugins['all']['ewww-image-optimizer/ewww-image-optimizer.php'],
    $plugins['all']['limit-login-attempts-reloaded/limit-login-attempts-reloaded.php'],
    // Must-use plugins.
    $plugins['mustuse']['ray-loader.php'],
    $plugins['mustuse']['wordpress-ray/wp-ray.php']
    );
  return $plugins;
}
add_filter( 'plugins_list', 'barrd_filter_plugins_list' );

Standard plugins

Must-use (MU) plugins

Finding the plugins basename

If you dump the value of the $plugins variable you can see the full names of all the plugins that are active. I use Spatie Ray and by simply adding;

ray( $plugins );

The following is returned.

In image format

In text format

array:9 [
  "all" => array:14 [
    "acf-image-aspect-ratio-crop/acf-image-aspect-ratio-crop.php" => array:25 []
    "advanced-custom-fields-pro/acf.php" => array:27 []
    "barrd-stop-modified-update/barrd-stop-modified-update.php" => array:15 []
    "code-profiler/index.php" => array:25 []
    "contact-form-7/wp-contact-form-7.php" => array:25 []
    "ewww-image-optimizer/ewww-image-optimizer.php" => array:25 []
    "limit-login-attempts-reloaded/limit-login-attempts-reloaded.php" => array:25 []
    "mailersend-official-smtp-integration/mailersend-wordpress.php" => array:25 []
    "worker/init.php" => array:25 []
    "query-monitor/query-monitor.php" => array:25 []
    "redirection/redirection.php" => array:25 []
    "spinupwp/spinupwp.php" => array:25 []
    "wp-2fa/wp-2fa.php" => array:25 []
    "wordpress-seo/wp-seo.php" => array:25 []
  ]
  "search" => []
  "active" => array:11 []
  "inactive" => array:3 []
  "recently_activated" => array:3 []
  "upgrade" => []
  "mustuse" => array:9 [
    "barrd-functions.php" => array:14 []
    "bedrock-autoloader.php" => array:14 []
    "0----code-profiler.php" => array:14 []
    "bedrock-disallow-indexing/bedrock-disallow-indexing.php" => array:14 []
    "disallow-indexing.php" => array:14 []
    "0-worker.php" => array:14 []
    "ray-loader.php" => array:14 []
    "register-theme-directory.php" => array:14 []
    "wordpress-ray/wp-ray.php" => array:14 []
  ]
  "dropins" => array:1 []
  "paused" => []
]

From this we can see the (full) plugin names and under which array keys they are stored.

Final thoughts

The process to hide plugins from the list has been made far simpler with the addition of plugins_list rather than using all_plugins. It shouldn’t be used without a good deal of thought and ensure there are no better methods of achieving the desired result.

Article Information

About Dave A.K.A. 'barrd'

Dave is a Bristol based Scottish Expat who has 20+ years experience of web development. Loves playing guitar, reading books, watching Sci-Fi and tinkering with tech.

Read more about Dave