WordPress plugins are version-based. You receive updates in your admin dashboard as soon as a new version update for a plugin is available.
For some plugins you might feel like the previous version was better than the current one. And then you may want to rollback the version changes for that specific plugin.
Same thing has happened to me when I updated one of the regularly used plugins on my sites. Its not that I got dissatisfied with the plugin. It was just a feature that bothered me for a while. Since I had no options to disable that feature, I decided to revert the plugin to an older version.
I didn’t look for alternatives, because this one was helping my sites from past couple of years, and I found it pretty cool.
A kind note: Do not revert to a previous version if you are not sure that plugin doesn’t carry serious updates (in terms of security, functionality, and WordPress platform). Its about personal preferences, that’s the only reason why I decided to use an older version of the plugin.
Here is a quick workaround about how to find the previous versions of a WordPress plugin. Once you have that plugin file, the installation can be done by a normal upload.
Downloading & installing a previous version of WordPress plugin
- Head over to the plugin page in the WordPress plugin repository. Click the Developers tab there.
- In the other version section, you have a list of available versions of the plugin. Click the desired link to download the plugin files.
- You now have the plugin files of that particular version. Remove the current installation of the plugin from your WordPress dashboard (first deactivate it, then click delete).
- Now in the Plugins section, click the upload tab. Select the zip archive that we’ve just downloaded from the repository. Click OK to start the upload.
- Navigate again to the plugins section, activate the plugin. Voila!
Now, you have an older version of the plugin running on your WordPress. If you think that reverting to the older one is not safe, you should contact the plugin developer regarding help or request a feature update.
