Description
Abhishek Site Cleanup Controls gives developers and site owners fine-grained control over 35+ WordPress features that are often unnecessary. Each feature has a simple on/off toggle, organised into five logical groups inside Settings -> Site Cleanup Controls.
No features are enabled by default — activate only what you need.
Security
- User Enumeration — Block ?author=N redirect attacks that expose usernames.
- Author Archives — Return 404 for author archive pages.
- XML-RPC + Pingback — Fully disable the XML-RPC endpoint and remove the X-Pingback header.
- Plugin and Theme Editor — Set DISALLOW_FILE_EDIT to prevent in-admin file editing.
- Application Passwords — Disable the Application Passwords feature.
- REST API — Restrict REST API access to authenticated users only.
- Right Click — Disable the browser context menu on the frontend.
Performance
- Emojis — Remove all emoji scripts, styles, and DNS prefetch hints.
- Embed Objects — Disable WordPress oEmbed and embed scripts.
- Dashicons — Prevent Dashicons from loading for non-logged-in visitors.
- Heartbeat — Deregister the Heartbeat API script.
- Block Library CSS — Remove wp-block-library and global-styles stylesheets on the frontend.
- Version Var (?ver=) — Strip ?ver= query strings from enqueued asset URLs.
- PDF Thumbnails — Skip thumbnail generation for uploaded PDF files.
- oEmbed — Remove oEmbed discovery links and disable autoembed.
- Remote Block Patterns — Stop WordPress fetching patterns from api.wordpress.org.
Head Cleanup
- Generator Meta Tag — Remove the WordPress version meta tag from head.
- WLW Manifest — Remove the Windows Live Writer manifest link.
- Really Simple Discovery (RSD) — Remove the RSD link tag.
- Short Link — Remove the shortlink tag and HTTP header.
- Adjacent Posts Links — Remove prev/next link tags from single post heads.
- RSS Feeds — Redirect all feed URLs to the homepage.
Admin Cleanup
- capital_P_dangit — Remove WordPress forced capitalisation filter.
- Screen Options and Help Tabs — Hide Screen Options and Help dropdowns.
- Howdy to Welcome — Replace “Howdy,” with “Welcome,” in the admin bar.
- Navigation Items in Admin Bar — Remove WP logo, site name, updates, and comments.
- Clean Dashboard — Remove all default dashboard widgets.
- Privacy Tools — Hide Export/Erase Personal Data from the Tools menu.
- Site Health Page — Hide Site Health from the Tools menu.
- WP Login Logo and Favicon — Hide the WordPress logo on the login page.
- Admin Email Verification Prompt — Disable the admin email confirm interstitial.
- Empty Trash (1 week) — Shorten automatic trash-emptying from 30 days to 7 days.
Content
- Comments — Disable comments sitewide.
- Post Revisions — Disable revision storage.
- Search — Redirect all search queries to the homepage.
WordPress Features
- Thumbnails / Featured Images — Remove post thumbnail support.
- Widgets — Disable all widgets and sidebars.
- Navigation Menus — Remove nav menu theme support.
- Tags — Unregister tags from posts.
- Categories — Unregister categories from posts.
- Post Formats — Remove post format theme support.
- Custom Fields — Remove custom fields meta box from editor.
- Excerpts — Remove excerpt support from posts and pages.
- Trackbacks — Remove trackback support from posts.
- Attachment Pages — Redirect attachment URLs to the file directly.
- Automatic Updates — Disable automatic core, plugin, and theme updates.
- Self Pings — Stop WordPress pinging your own site.
- jQuery Migrate — Remove jQuery Migrate script on the frontend.
Screenshots
The main settings page with all features grouped by category. 
The Security group with individual feature toggles. 
The Performance group with individual feature toggles.
Installation
- Upload the
abhishek-site-cleanup-controlsfolder to/wp-content/plugins/. - Activate the plugin through the Plugins menu in WordPress.
- Go to Settings -> Site Cleanup Controls.
- Toggle the features you want to disable and click Save Changes.
FAQ
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Do any features activate automatically?
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No. Every feature is off by default. You choose exactly what to enable.
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Will disabling the REST API break the block editor?
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No. The toggle only blocks unauthenticated requests. Logged-in users and the block editor are unaffected.
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Post Revisions or the Plugin/Theme Editor toggle is not working — why?
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WP_POST_REVISIONS and DISALLOW_FILE_EDIT are core constants that work most reliably when defined in wp-config.php before WordPress loads. The plugin sets them at runtime as a convenience, but for guaranteed effect add them to wp-config.php directly.
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Will my settings be deleted if I deactivate the plugin?
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No. Settings are only removed when you delete the plugin. An uninstall.php file handles clean removal.
Reviews
There are no reviews for this plugin.
Contributors & Developers
“Abhishek Site Cleanup Controls” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.
Contributors
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Interested in development?
Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.
Changelog
1.1.1
- Fixed fatal parse error caused by missing closing bracket in feature list array.
- Fixed PHP 7.4 compatibility issue with str_starts_with().
1.1.0
- Added new WordPress Features group with 13 toggles: Thumbnails, Widgets, Navigation Menus, Tags, Categories, Post Formats, Custom Fields, Excerpts, Trackbacks, Attachment Pages, Automatic Updates, Self Pings, jQuery Migrate.
1.0.1
- Settings page redesigned with accordion groups, Security open by default.
1.0.0
- Initial release with 35 toggleable features across 5 categories.