The Hack Repair Guy's Plugin Archiver Plugin

The Hack Repair Guy’s Plugin Archiver allows you to archive plugins or backup plugins by moving plugins out of the WordPress Plugins list and plugins directory while still keeping them safe and readily available for installation or reactivation later.

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Why use The Hack Repair Guy’s Plugin Archiver?

• Maybe you have a set of plugins that you would like to install in all of your WordPress sites, but would rather not have them listed within Plugins (until you need them).
• Maybe you’ve run into a buggy or possibly compromised plugin, that when activated breaks or causes harm to your website. The Hack Repair Guy’s Plugin Archiver plugin will allow you to simply archive plugins, preventing accidental activation.
• Maybe you wish to test sets of plugins, pulling different sets of plugins into your plugin list as you need them; all with just a few clicks.
• Maybe you share management with another administrator who believes the “Activate” link is an invitation to “click it!”

With The Hack Repair Guy’s Plugin Archiver, you may even upload or move plugins to your own custom archive directory.

“The secret to getting ahead is getting started.” ― Mark Twain

The quickest method for installing The Hack Repair Guy’s Plugin Archiver is:

• Go to your admin area and select Plugins -> Add new from the menu.
• Search for “The Hack Repair Guy’s Plugin Archiver”.
• Click install.
• Click activate.

If you would prefer to manually install The Hack Repair Guy’s Plugin Archiver follow these instructions:

• Upload the hackrepair-plugin-archiver folder to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory
• Activate the plugin through the Plugins menu in WordPress

More documentation:

• https://hackrepair.com/about/hackrepair-plugin-archiver

“The beginning is always NOW.” ― Roy Bennett

Why was this plugin created?

In my day to day work cleaning malware from hacked websites, I sometimes run into situations where after updating WordPress, a plugin would break the website (causing a white screen or error message).

This has left me with a predicament. In deactivating the plugin in question, the plugin itself remained activatable within the plugins list.

Invariably, another administrator would log in a week or so later, see the plugin deactivated and “activate” it. This would often result in an emergency–and sadly, lots of finger pointing. So The Hack Repair Guy’s Plugin Archiver plugin was born.

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1. If I deactivate or remove the plugin what will happen?

Short answer: Nothing.

Long answer: Archived plugins will remain where you left them (nicely archived), until you reactivate the The Hack Repair Guy’s Plugin Archiver plugin.

2. Are you planning an “unarchive all” upon deletion of plugin option?

Short answer: No.

Long answer: The Hack Repair Guy’s Plugin Archiver was built around the concept of managing different versions of plugins saved within different archival directories. If we were to include an “unarchive all” upon deletion option, the plugin would not know which duplicate to unarchive. The result–none would be unarchived. So that feature, if implemented, would not perform as expected.

3. Why not just delete plugins?

Short answer: Archiving is way cooler!

Long answer: Some plugins will delete data upon deletion. Not so fun if you’ve spent hours setting up a plugin, only to learn later, after deleting it, that all of the settings previously saved were “deleted.”

Likewise, IMHO, some occasional use utility plugins simply don’t have a place in the active plugins list. Sure, plugins like WP Migrate, Velvet Blues Update URLs, Duplicator, or your favorite database optimization plugs are simple enough to delete. But why waste the effort. Just archive it!

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Donations?

If you find The Hack Repair Guy’s Plugin Archiver useful, please consider donating $1 or more to our mutual cause.

Every dollar counts and will help our beleaguered plugin developers concentrate on improvements and less about next month’s rent. Donate for the cause at https://hackrepair.com/about/hackrepair-plugin-archiver

“It’s not how much we give but how much love we put into giving.” ― Mother Teresa

2.0.3

• 4.8.1 Compatible

2.0.1

• Fixed relative includes error on WordPress 4.4

2.0.0

• Randomized default plugin archive directory

1.0.9

• Fixed WP Rocket incompatibility.

1.0.8

• Fixed iThemes Sync incompatibility.

1.0.7

• Updated video in description.

1.0.5

• Updated description.

1.0.0

• The Hack Repair Guy’s Plugin Archiver is born!

“Have no fear of perfection – you’ll never reach it.” ― Salvador Dali