Tools

Plugins and themes, database cleanup, and search and replace: the routine work that otherwise means wp-admin or a terminal. Every change takes a snapshot first.

The rule this tab is built on

Every change made from Tools takes a snapshot of the site first, and a snapshot that fails stops the change. That is enforced underneath the screen rather than by it, so there is no path through the app that skips it. When it does stop, it says what it was about to do: the snapshot before deactivate plugin failed, so nothing was changed.

Open a site, then the Tools tab. Everything here is per site.

Plugins and themes

The list shows every plugin and theme with its state — active or inactive — and, where one is waiting, an amber badge carrying the version jump: 5.9.8 → 6.1.7. A column of those scans in a second. Rows with an update also carry an Update button, and the panel head counts them: 3 updates, with Update all (3) beside it. Update all takes every plugin and theme that has one, in a single run, after one snapshot.

Tick rows to act on several at once: Activate, Deactivate, Update, Delete…. Each name is sent as its own command, so a failure names the plugin that failed rather than reporting "three of five". Deleting asks for a typed word first.

A theme cannot be deactivated — WordPress always has one active. The app says so, and says to activate another instead.

Clean the database

Press Count and the app lists what is actually there: post revisions, trashed content, auto-drafts, spam comments, trashed comments and expired transients. Nothing is removed by counting. Tick the categories to clear and press Clean selected…, which asks for a typed word.

A category that cannot be counted is left out of the list rather than shown as zero, so a nought on the screen means nought on the site. Optimise tables afterwards is ticked by default and reclaims the space the deletions free. A database snapshot is taken before anything is deleted.

Search and replace

For the address that changed, or the phrase that is wrong in two hundred posts. Fill in Search for and Replace with and press Preview: the app reports how many rows would change, in which tables, and nothing is written.

Replace… is only offered for the exact request that was previewed. Change any field and it greys out until you preview again, so what runs is always what you were shown.

Serialised data survives: the replacement runs with WP-CLI's --precise mode, which re-serialises rather than editing the text and leaving the string lengths wrong. Patterns are never treated as regular expressions. Replacing an address with nothing is refused — an empty replacement across a database is not a request anyone means.

Include tables outside the WordPress prefix widens it beyond this install's own tables. Leave it off unless you know why you want it.

Requirements

WP-CLI on the server, the same as Updates. On local sites the app created itself, WP-CLI runs inside the site's own container, so Tools works there too.

What this is not

Updating everything across several sites at once belongs to Updates, which backs up and updates site after site from the Sites screen. Tools is for one site at a time, in more detail.