Title: Simple Maintenance Redirect
Author: PluginRx
Published: <strong>April 28, 2025</strong>
Last modified: October 30, 2025

---

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# Simple Maintenance Redirect

 By [PluginRx](https://profiles.wordpress.org/apos37/)

[Download](https://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/simple-maintenance-redirect.1.1.2.zip)

 * [Details](https://wordpress.org/plugins/simple-maintenance-redirect/#description)
 * [Reviews](https://wordpress.org/plugins/simple-maintenance-redirect/#reviews)
 *  [Installation](https://wordpress.org/plugins/simple-maintenance-redirect/#installation)
 * [Development](https://wordpress.org/plugins/simple-maintenance-redirect/#developers)

 [Support](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/simple-maintenance-redirect/)

## Description

**Simple Maintenance Redirect** allows site administrators to enable maintenance
mode by redirecting visitors to one of your specified pages (without header and 
footer) or an external URL instead of complicating things with all kinds of confusing
settings. Logged-in administrators can still access the site normally, ensuring 
a seamless workflow while updates are made.

**Features:**

 * **Custom Maintenance Page:** Redirects visitors to a selected WordPress page 
   while the site is in maintenance mode.
 * **Maintenance Page Modifications:** Automatically hides the header and footer
   on the maintenance page and adds a `maintenance-mode` class to the body element
   for further customization.
 * **External Redirect Option:** Redirect to an external URL instead of a WordPress
   page if needed.
 * **Admin Bypass:** Logged-in administrators can continue working on the site without
   redirection.
 * **Developer Hook:** Modify rules for when a user should be redirected.

**How It Works:**

 * Create and publish a page with your custom maintenance message.
 * Go to **Settings > General** and choose a **Maintenance Mode Page** or enter 
   an **External URL**.
 * When enabled, visitors will be redirected to the selected page or URL. Logged-
   in administrators can still access the site.
 * The plugin does not affect the login page, REST API, or JSON endpoints.

This plugin is great for “coming soon” pages, staging site protection, design previews,
or any situation where you need to hide the main site while keeping access for yourself.

### Demo

## Screenshots

 * [[
 * Settings and admin bar

## Installation

 1. Upload the plugin files to the `/wp-content/plugins/simple-maintenance-redirect/`
    directory.
 2. Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress.
 3. Go to Settings > General.

## FAQ

### Can I customize the maintenance page?

Yes! Just create a page like you would normally and the plugin will automatically
hide the header and footer so that your navigation bar and page styling is not visible.
If you want to further customize the appearance of the page such as the background
color, you can use CSS like you would any other page. A `maintenance-mode` class
has been added to the body element for easier targeting. CSS can easily be added
in your customizer.

### Can I allow specific users or roles to bypass maintenance mode?

Yes! Logged-in administrators are always allowed. You can also customize bypass 
conditions using the `smredirect_redirect_rules` filter.

    ```
    <?php
    add_filter( 'smredirect_redirect_rules', function( $checks, $page_id, $request_uri ) {
        // Allow access to a specific user (with ID 37)
        $checks[ 'not_john_smith' ] = get_current_user_id() !== 37;

        // Allow access to a specific role
        $user = wp_get_current_user();
        $checks[ 'not_editor' ] = !in_array( 'editor', (array) $user->roles, true );

        // Always return checks
        return $checks;
    }, 10, 3 );
    ?>
    ```

### Where can I request features and get further support?

We recommend using our [website support forum](https://pluginrx.com/support/plugin/simple-maintenance-redirect/)
as the primary method for requesting features and getting help. You can also reach
out via our [Discord support server](https://discord.gg/3HnzNEJVnR) or the [WordPress.org support forum](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/simple-maintenance-redirect/),
but please note that WordPress.org doesn’t always notify us of new posts, so it’s
not ideal for time-sensitive issues.

### Why does the redirect sometimes stay after I disable maintenance mode?

If a redirect was issued previously as a permanent redirect (HTTP 301) it can be
cached by browsers and upstream caches (CDNs, reverse proxies). A cached 301 tells
clients “this URL has moved permanently” and many browsers and proxies will continue
using the cached result without checking the origin again.

What we do now:

 * The plugin explicitly sends temporary redirects (HTTP 302) and uses no-cache 
   headers to avoid creating new cached permanent redirects.
 * We also provide a JavaScript fallback (enqueued script) for rare situations where
   headers were already sent before the redirect could be emitted.

How to fix it for visitors who still see the redirect:

 * Browser: Ask affected users to hard-refresh the page or clear their browser cache.
   On most browsers a hard refresh is Ctrl+F5 (Windows) or Cmd+Shift+R (macOS).
 * CDN / Reverse Proxy: If you use Cloudflare, Fastly, Varnish, nginx proxy_cache,
   or another caching layer, purge the cache for the affected URL (or do a full 
   purge if necessary). On Cloudflare you can purge a single URL from the dashboard
   or use their API.
 * Server configs: Ensure no server-level rewrite or redirect (nginx/apache) has
   permanently redirected the route.

## Reviews

There are no reviews for this plugin.

## Contributors & Developers

“Simple Maintenance Redirect” is open source software. The following people have
contributed to this plugin.

Contributors

 *   [ PluginRx ](https://profiles.wordpress.org/apos37/)

[Translate “Simple Maintenance Redirect” into your language.](https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/wp-plugins/simple-maintenance-redirect)

### Interested in development?

[Browse the code](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/simple-maintenance-redirect/),
check out the [SVN repository](https://plugins.svn.wordpress.org/simple-maintenance-redirect/),
or subscribe to the [development log](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/log/simple-maintenance-redirect/)
by [RSS](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/log/simple-maintenance-redirect/?limit=100&mode=stop_on_copy&format=rss).

## Changelog

#### 1.1.2

 * Fix: Caching redirects

#### 1.1.1

 * Fix: Login page blocked if redirected to a different page

#### 1.1.0

 * Update: New support links

#### 1.0.1

 * Initial Release on April 28, 2025

## Meta

 *  Version **1.1.2**
 *  Last updated **6 months ago**
 *  Active installations **100+**
 *  WordPress version ** 5.9 or higher **
 *  Tested up to **6.8.5**
 *  PHP version ** 7.4 or higher **
 * Tags
 * [coming soon](https://wordpress.org/plugins/tags/coming-soon/)[construction](https://wordpress.org/plugins/tags/construction/)
   [maintenance mode](https://wordpress.org/plugins/tags/maintenance-mode/)[redirect](https://wordpress.org/plugins/tags/redirect/)
   [staging](https://wordpress.org/plugins/tags/staging/)
 *  [Advanced View](https://wordpress.org/plugins/simple-maintenance-redirect/advanced/)

## Ratings

No reviews have been submitted yet.

[Your review](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/simple-maintenance-redirect/reviews/#new-post)

[See all reviews](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/simple-maintenance-redirect/reviews/)

## Contributors

 *   [ PluginRx ](https://profiles.wordpress.org/apos37/)

## Support

Got something to say? Need help?

 [View support forum](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/simple-maintenance-redirect/)