How to Hide a Plugin From the WordPress Plugins List

Updated October 2026 by Marius: rewritten for current WordPress and tested on WordPress 7.1. Originally published by Hardeep Asrani in 2014.

Sometimes a plugin has to keep running without showing up under Plugins, for example a small custom plugin that a client site depends on, or a plugin a client keeps deactivating “to see if it helps”. WordPress has a filter for exactly this.

Hide a plugin from the Plugins screen

add_filter( 'all_plugins', function ( $plugins ) {
	unset( $plugins['akismet/akismet.php'] );
	return $plugins;
} );Code language: PHP (php)

The plugin keeps running; it is only left out of the list. The All and Active counts at the top of the screen go down by one as well, so nothing looks off. The same filter feeds the plugin list in Network Admin > Plugins, so it works on Multisite too.

Find the plugin’s file name

The key in the array is the plugin’s folder and main file, such as akismet/akismet.php. To find it, hover over the plugin’s Activate or Deactivate link on the Plugins screen: the link contains plugin=akismet%2Fakismet.php, where %2F is the slash. A plugin that is a single file has no folder, like hello.php.

Keep it visible to yourself

Hiding the plugin from every account, including your own, gets confusing fast. This version keeps the full list for one username:

add_filter( 'all_plugins', function ( $plugins ) {
	// Your own account still sees the full list.
	if ( 'yourusername' === wp_get_current_user()->user_login ) {
		return $plugins;
	}
	unset( $plugins['akismet/akismet.php'] );
	return $plugins;
} );Code language: PHP (php)

Replace yourusername with your login name.

What it does not hide

When the hidden plugin has an update, it still appears under Dashboard > Updates and in the update count next to Plugins in the admin menu. Leave that alone: hiding the updates as well means nobody updates the plugin. It is also hidden only from this one screen. WP-CLI’s wp plugin list, FTP and the file manager in your hosting panel still show it.

If it must never be deactivated

Hiding a plugin does not stop anyone from turning it off. If the code must always run, make it a must-use plugin instead: put the file in wp-content/mu-plugins/. Must-use plugins load automatically, cannot be deactivated from the dashboard and are listed only under a separate Must-Use tab. WordPress loads only PHP files sitting directly in that folder, so a plugin with its own folder needs a one-line loader file there that requires its main file.

Where to add this code

Add the snippet with a code snippets plugin instead of your theme’s functions.php, so it survives theme updates and you can switch it off without FTP. This guide shows how with the free Code Snippets plugin. On my own sites I use WPCodeBox, which keeps snippets in a cloud library so the same snippet can go on several sites. (Marius)

Disclosure: the WPCodeBox link is an affiliate link. If you buy through it, I earn a commission at no extra cost to you.