Preventing Clients from Deactivating WordPress Plugins
Do you want to prevent clients from accidentally deactivating WordPress plugins?
If you build websites for other people, then you probably have a few important plugins that you install on every client site. If a client accidentally deactivates one of these essential plugins, then it could break their site completely.
In this article, we’ll show you how to stop clients from deactivating WordPress plugins.
Why Prevent Clients from Deactivating WordPress Plugins?
If you create websites for other people, then you may have a list of must-have WordPress plugins that you install on every site. These might be security plugins that protect the client against hackers and malicious code.
You might even use plugins to automate crucial WordPress maintenance tasks such as creating regular backups or deleting spam comments. If the client accidentally deactivates one of these plugins then it could make their website vulnerable to attack, or affect how it works. In the worst-case scenario, it might even break their website completely.
Even though this isn’t your fault, it’s still a bad client experience and could damage your reputation. With that being said, let’s see how you can stop clients from accidentally deactivating plugins in WordPress.
Method 1. Using the Default WordPress User Roles (No Plugin Required)
WordPress comes with a simple but powerful user management system where each user has different capabilities based on their assigned role.
When you install WordPress, it creates the following user roles automatically:
Administrator
Editor
Author
Contributor
Subscriber
By default, only the Administrator has permission to manage plugins, which includes deactivating plugins.
With that in mind, we recommend creating a single admin account for your clients so they have a way to manage their sites. You can then create non-admin accounts for anyone else who needs access but doesn’t require admin privileges. Without admin rights, this means the majority of your clients won’t be able to deactivate plugins.
You can use any role for the non-administrator accounts. However, we recommend using Editor as it allows users to create, edit, publish, and delete content, including content created by other people. They just won’t have access to the higher-level WordPress features. It’s also a good idea to give the Admin account to someone who has experience with WordPress and understands how to manage a WordPress website.
