Title: Disable Plugins
Author: kynatro
Published: <strong>May 24, 2011</strong>
Last modified: June 7, 2014

---

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This plugin **hasn’t been tested with the latest 3 major releases of WordPress**.
It may no longer be maintained or supported and may have compatibility issues when
used with more recent versions of WordPress.

![](https://s.w.org/plugins/geopattern-icon/disable-plugins.svg)

# Disable Plugins

 By [kynatro](https://profiles.wordpress.org/kynatro/)

[Download](https://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/disable-plugins.zip)

 * [Details](https://kea.wordpress.org/plugins/disable-plugins/#description)
 * [Reviews](https://kea.wordpress.org/plugins/disable-plugins/#reviews)
 *  [Installation](https://kea.wordpress.org/plugins/disable-plugins/#installation)
 * [Development](https://kea.wordpress.org/plugins/disable-plugins/#developers)

 [Support](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/disable-plugins/)

## Description

One of WordPress’ biggest bottlenecks is that it loads every single plugin that

is active on your WordPress installation on every single post/page no matter whether
they are needed for that post/page or not. This plugin will allow you to create 
simple rewrite rules to exclude a plugin or plugins from any URI pattern match. 
This is a great way to reduce the memory footprint, SQL queries run at page load,
load times, and improve site response speed.

This is NOT a normal WordPress plugin, but an _mu_ (must use) plugin and requires

special installation instructions. Please see the [installation section](https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/disable-plugins)
for more information.

**Requirements:** PHP5+, WordPress 2.9.x+

## Installation

Create a `/wp-content/mu-plugins/disable-plugins-rules` directory if the plugin

has not created one for you already. Create a rules file for each site your WordPress
installation is running, naming the file after the host name for the site followed
by a `.rules` extension. For example `mywordpresssite.com.rules` would be a rules
set for `mywordpresssite.com`.

Populate your rules using regular expression pattern matches and plugin base
 names
on each line of your rules file. For example, to exclude the _Hello Dolly_ and _Akisment_
plugins from being loaded on your home page, you would write a rules file that looks
like:

    ```
    # Prevent the Hello Dolly plugin from loading on the home page
    ^\/$ hello
    # Prevent the Akisment plugin from loading on the home page
    ^\/$ akismet
    ```

You will need to write a rule for each plugin that will be excluded for each
 pattern
that you wish to exclude that plugin from. C style comments are allowed in your 
rules file to document your rules.

## FAQ

  Q. How do I format my exception rule?

This is pretty easy to do, just two pieces to each line – the regular expression
pattern and the plugin’s basename (usually the folder or file name of the plugin).
See the installation section for an example of how this might look.

  Q. Will this work on a multisite installation?

This plugin is made to run with multisite in mind, but it has not been tested with
a multisite installation yet.

  Q. How do you write regular expressions and do you have any good tools for writing
them?

If you’re asking this question, you may want to consider a different plugin to help
manage your site’s plugin use, but you can check out the following resources:

 * Good information on regular expressions – [Regular Expressions](http://www.regular-expressions.info/)
 * A nice cheat sheet for writing regular expressions – [Regular Expressions Cheat Sheet](http://www.addedbytes.com/cheat-sheets/regular-expressions-cheat-sheet/)
 * A great library of regular expression patterns – [Regular Expression Library](http://regexlib.com/)
 * An excellent tool for testing patterns – [RegexPal Testing Tool](http://www.regexpal.com/)

Unfortunately, I really can’t do much support for this plugin, but time permitting
I will continue to develop it. I am considering an admin interface for easier management,
but thats down the road a bit.

## Reviews

There are no reviews for this plugin.

## Contributors & Developers

“Disable Plugins” is open source software. The following people have contributed
to this plugin.

Contributors

 *   [ kynatro ](https://profiles.wordpress.org/kynatro/)

[Translate “Disable Plugins” into your language.](https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/wp-plugins/disable-plugins)

### Interested in development?

[Browse the code](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/disable-plugins/), 
check out the [SVN repository](https://plugins.svn.wordpress.org/disable-plugins/),
or subscribe to the [development log](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/log/disable-plugins/)
by [RSS](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/log/disable-plugins/?limit=100&mode=stop_on_copy&format=rss).

## Changelog

#### 1.0.1

 * Update compatible to version number

#### 1.0.0

 * Initial release

## Meta

 *  Version **1.0.1**
 *  Last updated **12 years ago**
 *  Active installations **10+**
 *  WordPress version ** 2.9.0 or higher **
 *  Tested up to **3.9.40**
 *  Language
 * [English (US)](https://wordpress.org/plugins/disable-plugins/)
 * Tags
 * [disable plugin](https://kea.wordpress.org/plugins/tags/disable-plugin/)[mu plugin](https://kea.wordpress.org/plugins/tags/mu-plugin/)
   [plugin manager](https://kea.wordpress.org/plugins/tags/plugin-manager/)
 *  [Advanced View](https://kea.wordpress.org/plugins/disable-plugins/advanced/)

## Ratings

No reviews have been submitted yet.

[Add my review](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/disable-plugins/reviews/#new-post)

[See all reviews](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/disable-plugins/reviews/)

## Contributors

 *   [ kynatro ](https://profiles.wordpress.org/kynatro/)

## Support

Got something to say? Need help?

 [View support forum](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/disable-plugins/)

## Donate

Would you like to support the advancement of this plugin?

 [ Donate to this plugin ](http://www.kynatro.com/)