How to prevent clients from accidentally deactivating critical plugins
If you manage WordPress sites for clients, you’ve probably been there: a client pokes around the Plugins screen, deactivates something important, and suddenly the site is broken. Then comes the support ticket.
ToggleWP’s Plugin Control module lets you remove the Deactivate link from any plugin – so the button simply isn’t there for non-admin users.
How it works
- Enable the Plugin Control module in ToggleWP.
- Go to the Plugin Manager screen and find the plugin you want to protect.
- Check “Protect”, save changes.
That’s it. The client can still see the plugin is installed, but the option to deactivate it is gone.
What you can protect
Any plugin. Common candidates:
- Your preferred security plugin
- WooCommerce (on shops)
- Your caching or performance plugin
- Custom functionality plugins you built
- Your client’s membership or LMS plugin
Combine it with hiding
If you’d rather clients don’t see certain plugins at all, Plugin Control also lets you hide plugins entirely from other admin users. Useful for internal tools or agency plugins you don’t want clients questioning.
Use with Site Sync
If you manage multiple client sites, you can configure Plugin Control rules once on your hub site and push them to every client site automatically via Site Sync – no need to repeat the setup on each site.
Protecting your critical plugins takes seconds per plugin. The time it saves when a client doesn’t break something is considerably longer.