We believe that regularly updating the WordPress core, themes, and plugins is crucial for maintaining the security of your WordPress site. However, sometimes updating a plugin to its latest version can inadvertently disrupt your website’s functionality.
This situation can be very frustrating and is a key reason why many beginners hesitate to update their plugins.
In this article, we will guide you on how to roll back WordPress plugins, serving as a beginner-friendly version control system.
When Should You Roll Back WordPress Plugins?
It is considered best practice to keep your WordPress site updated. This means you should always utilize the latest versions of WordPress, plugins, and themes.
Unfortunately, updates can occasionally lead to issues that break your website. This may occur due to bugs in the code or conflicts with your theme or other plugins.
That’s why we strongly advise creating a full backup of your WordPress site before making any updates.
However, restoring your entire site from a backup can be cumbersome, and you might lose other recent changes you wish to retain. Instead of restoring a backup, if you can identify the plugin that caused the issue, you can easily revert the changes and notify the developer for a fix.
If you prefer, you can manually install an older version of the plugin. However, if you still have access to your WordPress admin area, rolling back the plugin version is a more efficient option.
Let’s explore how to easily rollback WordPress plugins using a beginner-friendly version control method. First, we’ll guide you on how to fix your website if it’s broken and you can’t log in:
- What Should You Do If You Can’t Access Your Website?
- Watch Our Video Tutorial
- How to Roll Back a WordPress Plugin to an Earlier Version
- How to Roll Back WordPress Themes to an Earlier Version
- Tips for Ensuring Your WordPress Customizations Are Future-Proof
What Should You Do If You Can’t Access Your Website?
Before rolling back a plugin or theme, you need to log in to your website.
But what if the updated plugin or theme has caused your website to show a critical error or the dreaded white screen of death? Or maybe your site is still operational, but you’re locked out of the WordPress admin area?
In such situations, you will need to manually deactivate your plugin or theme.
How to Manually Deactivate WordPress Plugins
If a plugin update has caused significant issues on your WordPress site, we suggest deactivating all plugins and then reactivating them one at a time.
Please refer to our guide on how to deactivate all plugins when you cannot access the wp-admin area, and follow one of the two methods to manually deactivate all your plugins.
You should now be able to log in to your WordPress admin dashboard. Proceed to the next section to learn how to revert the problematic plugin to a previous version. After that, you can reactivate your plugins one by one.
Manually Deactivating WordPress Themes
If an updated theme is causing issues on your website, we recommend downloading a copy of that theme to your computer and then removing the theme from your site.
You can find detailed instructions in our step-by-step guide on how to uninstall and delete a WordPress theme.
Make sure to carefully follow the sections on preparing to delete a WordPress theme and how to remove the theme using FTP or the cPanel File Manager.
Once completed, you should be able to access your WordPress admin area again. Next, upload the theme folder from your computer to your website, and then scroll down to the third section below for instructions on how to revert the plugin to a previous version.
Are You Still Encountering an Error Message?
If you are still encountering an error message that prevents you from accessing WordPress, take note of the error and check our guide on resolving issues when locked out of the WordPress admin for potential solutions.
If that doesn’t help, refer to our list of the 50 most common WordPress errors and their solutions. Additionally, you can check our guide on how to effectively request WordPress support for more assistance with the error.
If you prefer written instructions, just continue reading.
Reverting a WordPress Plugin to a Previous Version
The first step is to install and activate the WP Rollback plugin. For detailed instructions, refer to our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
After activation, navigate to the Plugins » Installed Plugins page, where you will see a new ‘Rollback’ link under each plugin installed from the WordPress.org plugin directory.
Important Note: You cannot revert third-party plugins that are not listed in the official WordPress plugin directory.
To restore a previous version of a plugin, navigate to the plugins page and click the ‘Rollback’ link located beneath that specific plugin.
The WP Rollback plugin will direct you to a page displaying your currently installed version and the available versions you can revert to.
Select an earlier version and then click the ‘Rollback’ button.
The plugin will show a warning message, reminding you to create a complete backup of your WordPress site before proceeding.
If you have a recent backup of your WordPress site, you can proceed by clicking the ‘Rollback’ button.
WP Rollback will download and replace your current version with the selected version. Once ready, don’t forget to click the ‘Activate Plugin’ link.
Reverting WordPress Themes to a Previous Version
If you are using a free theme downloaded from the WordPress.org theme directory, WP Rollback can also be used to revert your theme.
Simply navigate to the Appearance » Themes page and select the theme you wish to revert.
A popup titled ‘Theme Details’ will appear, showcasing the theme’s name and description, along with an option to enable auto-updates and a button for theme customization.
You will also find a ‘Rollback’ button located in the bottom right corner.
If the rollback option is not visible, ensure that the theme is sourced from the WordPress.org theme directory, as the plugin is not compatible with themes obtained from other sources.
If you are confident that the theme you wish to rollback is indeed from the WordPress.org directory, proceed to visit the Dashboard » Updates page. This action will prompt WordPress to check for available updates.
Return to the themes page and select the theme you wish to rollback. You should now see the ‘Rollback’ button available for use.
This will direct you to a page displaying the currently installed theme version along with a list of previous versions available for rollback.
Simply choose a previous version from the list and click the ‘Rollback’ button.
A warning message will appear, reminding you to complete a backup before proceeding.
If you have recently created a backup of your site, you can confidently click the ‘Rollback’ button.
The selected theme version will be downloaded and will replace the current version. To use this theme on your website, click the ‘Activate’ link.
How to Ensure Your WordPress Customizations Are Future-Proof
Many users add custom code snippets to their theme’s functions.php file or style.css for website customizations. However, these changes may be lost when updating to a new theme version.
Even after rolling back the theme update, customizations will not be restored. The only way to revert those changes is by restoring from a WordPress backup.
That’s why we recommend using the free WPCode plugin for adding custom code snippets to your website. This plugin helps safeguard your website customizations for the future.
With WPCode, you can add various types of custom snippets, implement conditional logic to enhance website speed, and much more. The best part is that you can easily activate or deactivate specific custom snippets.
If you upgrade to the pro version of WPCode, you’ll also gain access to Code Revisions.
This feature allows you to implement version control for your custom snippets, enabling you to track changes and restore them as needed.
In addition, WPCode offers a comprehensive library of expert code snippets, a custom code generator, and much more. It is an essential plugin for every WordPress website.
We hope this guide has helped you understand how to rollback WordPress plugins, similar to a version control system for beginners. You may also want to explore how to troubleshoot WordPress errors or check out our compilation of the most common WordPress issues and their solutions.
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