We at illuminea HQ were discussing the newly released Bulk Deactivated plugin reviewed by WP Tavern and how useful it is for tracking which plugins have been deactivated as opposed to those which were already deactivated. Rebecca then said “but the Recently Active tab in the plugin management area shows you which plugins were recently deactivated.”
But does it? And what does the very vague term “recently” really mean? Here is what we found out:
Only the user who deactivated the plugin sees it under Recently Active
Let’s say I deactivate Plugin X. The Recently Active tab will now appear with Plugin X listed in it (Plugin X will also appear under the All and Inactive tabs). But when Rebecca logs in to the site with her user, she won’t see that Recently Active tab, or if she has deactivated plugins recently, she’ll see it but the plugin I deactivated won’t be listed there.
Recent = 1 week
The WordPress Codex says the following under the entry for Recently Active Plugins:
“When a plugin has been inactive for more than 7 days it will be moved to the Inactive Plugins Table.”
So to wrap up this in-depth and riveting post: only you see plugins you’ve deactivated in the Recently Active tab; and they stay there, for your eyes only, for seven days.
You may continue now.
