MainWP Site Management
MainWP Site Management is the everyday toolkit in your MainWP Dashboard for the WordPress sites you maintain: plugins and themes, users and passwords, posts and pages, and one-click sign-in to each site’s WP Admin. Choose your sites by name, tag or client, and each change goes to all of them.
It’s all part of the free MainWP Core, built for agencies, freelancers and in-house teams who look after many WordPress sites and repeat these jobs every week.
“Have a problematic plugin and need to quickly filter to see which sites have the plugin active? Done in a few clicks.”
Housekeeping across client sites usually means a password list, a browser tab for each site and the same few clicks on every one of them. Your MainWP Dashboard does that work once, for every site you choose.
| Site work today | With MainWP Site Management |
|---|---|
| Look up a password and log in to each site’s WP Admin | Click Go to WP Admin, and your MainWP Dashboard signs you in to the site. |
| Install the same plugin on site after site | Search WordPress.org or upload a .zip once, pick your sites, and install and activate it on all of them. |
| Work out which sites still need a plugin | Search for the plugin with Exclude plugin turned on, and MainWP lists the sites that still need it. |
| Add a new team member to every client site | Create the user once, with a role, on all the sites you select. |
| Change the administrator password site by site | Set one new password for the connected administrator on every selected site from Admin Passwords. |
| Copy the same announcement into several sites | Write the post once, then publish or schedule it on the sites, tags or clients you choose. |
What does MainWP Site Management include?
Every tool below works on the sites you pick in one site selector, by name, tag or client.
| Feature | What it means for you |
|---|---|
| Go to WP Admin | Sign in to any child site’s WP Admin with one click from Manage Sites, the site’s own page, or the Updates, Posts, Pages and Users lists. |
| Plugins and themes | Install from WordPress.org or a .zip file, activate or delete across your sites, and deactivate plugins in bulk. View the results by plugin or by site. |
| Users | Create users on many sites at once, import them from a CSV file, and change roles, names, emails or passwords for several users in one step. |
| Admin Passwords | Give the connected administrator a new password on every selected site in one step, starting from a generated 24-character password. |
| Password Policy | Remind users to change their password every 30 to 360 days, with due-soon and overdue notices in WP Admin. |
| Posts and pages | Find posts and pages across your sites by status, keyword and date. Publish, unpublish, trash or restore posts in bulk, and write a new post once for many sites. |
| Tags and notes | Group sites with colored tags, filter by tag throughout your MainWP Dashboard, and keep a note on each site. |
| Import and export | Connect many sites at once from a CSV file, and export your site list to move it to another MainWP Dashboard. |
| Site Hardening | Ten checks on each site, from WordPress and PHP versions to debug mode and inactive plugins, with one-click buttons that turn off PHP and database error reporting. |
| Network Activity | A log of the changes made from your Dashboard and directly in each site’s WP Admin, with filters for date, site, tag, client, user, event and source. |
How does one-click login to WP Admin work in MainWP?
Click Go to WP Admin next to any site, and you land in that site’s WP Admin, signed in. The link sits on Manage Sites, on each site’s own page, and in the Updates, Posts, Pages and Users lists, so you can open a site from wherever you’re working.
Your MainWP Dashboard signs each login request with the site’s private key. The child site checks the signature, accepts the request once within 60 seconds and signs you in as the administrator your Dashboard connects with. You type no password, and none is sent. Both your Dashboard and the child site record each sign-in in Network Activity.
“The ability to jump in to any site is a great time saver when supporting lots of sites, and the monitoring and notifications really make the task of supporting a large number of sites so much easier.”
How do you install a plugin on many WordPress sites at once with MainWP?
Open Sites > Plugins and use the Install tab. Search WordPress.org or upload a .zip file, select your sites, and click Complete Installation. Activate after installation is on from the start, so the plugin is ready on every site when the run ends. Themes work the same way under Sites > Themes.
To change plugins you already have, search Manage Plugins by name and status across your sites, then activate, deactivate or delete them in bulk. Turn on Exclude plugin to list the sites that still need a plugin. Updates have their own tools, covered on MainWP Updates.
To install the same set of plugins on every new site, save it as a list with MainWP Favorites. To copy plugin settings across sites, use MainWP Bulk Settings Manager. Both are MainWP Pro add-ons.
How do you manage WordPress users and passwords across sites in MainWP?
Open Sites > Users to see the users on all your sites in one list, filtered by role. Filter by Administrator to check who has full access on each client site, and how long ago each one last changed their password.
- Add New creates a user on all the sites you select, with their role, and can email them their password.
- Import Users adds many users from a CSV file, each with their own role and sites.
- Edit changes the role, name, email or password of several users at once.
- Admin Passwords sets one new password for the administrator your Dashboard connects with, on every site you select.
- Password Policy prompts users to change their password every 30 to 360 days and shows due-soon and overdue notices in WP Admin. Set it once for all your sites, and change it for any single site.
Can you publish posts on several WordPress sites from MainWP?
Yes. Under Sites > Content Operations, write a post once, choose the sites, tags or clients it goes to, and publish it or schedule it for later. It suits announcements, holiday hours and other news that several client sites share.
Manage Posts finds posts across your sites by status, keyword and date, and publishes, unpublishes, trashes or restores them in bulk. Manage Pages does the same search for pages, with bulk trash, restore and delete, and you can edit any post or page from your MainWP Dashboard. For custom post types such as WooCommerce products, add MainWP Custom Post Types, a MainWP Pro add-on.
How do MainWP tags and notes keep your client sites organized?
Tags group your sites the way you think about them: by client type, care plan or hosting. Give each tag a color, add as many tags to a site as you like, and pick a whole tag at once whenever you choose sites for a task. Manage Sites filters by tag, by client and by status, such as sites with updates or sites on an older PHP version.
Each site also has a note, kept in your MainWP Dashboard and shown on Manage Sites and on the site’s Overview. It’s a handy place for hosting details, client requests or anything the next person on the site should know.
What does MainWP Site Hardening check on each site?
Site Hardening runs ten checks on each site: WordPress version, PHP version, PHP error reporting, database error reporting, SSL, debug mode, and outdated and inactive plugins and themes. PHP error reporting and database error reporting each have a one-click button that turns them off. WordPress Version has an Update WordPress button, and the plugin and theme checks link to Manage Updates, Manage Plugins or Manage Themes.
The Site Hardening widget on your MainWP Dashboard’s Overview totals the open items across all your sites, and Manage Sites has a Security column you can sort by. For vulnerability and malware scans, add the free MainWP Vulnerability Checker, Patchstack or MainWP Sucuri add-ons. How Secure is MainWP explains how MainWP secures the connection between your Dashboard and your child sites.
How does MainWP show who changed what on your sites?
Network Activity under Sites records the changes made from your MainWP Dashboard and the changes made directly in each site’s WP Admin, such as a plugin a client installed or a page an editor published. Filter by source to list the changes made in WP Admin on their own, or by date, site, tag, client, user and event. The Network Activity guide shows how to filter and dismiss entries.
Is MainWP Site Management right for your sites?
| What you need | Details |
|---|---|
| Plan | The free MainWP Core. Add MainWP Team Control, a MainWP Pro add-on, to give each team member their own rights on these pages. |
| MainWP Dashboard | A WordPress 6.2 or later site of its own, on PHP 8.3 or later. |
| Child sites | The free MainWP Child plugin on each site, with WordPress 6.2 or later and PHP 7.4 or later. |
| Site access | An administrator account on each child site for the connection. Go to WP Admin signs you in as that administrator. |
| Plugins and themes | Anything on WordPress.org, plus premium plugins and themes from a .zip file. |
| Server access | MainWP installs like any WordPress plugin, so your cPanel and FTP details stay with you. |
How do you start managing your sites with MainWP?
- Install the free MainWP Dashboard plugin on a WordPress site of its own.
- Install and activate MainWP Child on each site you manage.
- Connect your sites under Sites > Add New, one at a time, several at once on the Multiple Sites tab, or from a CSV file on the Import Sites tab.
- Create tags under Sites > Tags and add your sites to them.
- Open Sites > Plugins, Themes, Users or Content Operations, choose your sites, and run the task.
The Manage Sites guide covers connecting, organizing and removing sites in detail, and MainWP Free Features lists everything else in the free MainWP Core.
MainWP Site Management FAQ
Is MainWP Site Management free?
Yes. Plugins, themes, users, posts, pages, Go to WP Admin, tags, notes, Site Hardening and Network Activity are all part of the free MainWP Core. MainWP Pro adds add-ons such as Favorites, Bulk Settings Manager, Code Snippets and Team Control. See MainWP Free vs Pro.
Which account does Go to WP Admin sign you in as?
Go to WP Admin signs you in as the administrator account your MainWP Dashboard uses to connect to that site. To keep each person’s actions separate in WP Admin, create a user for each team member with Sites > Users > Add New.
Can you find every site that runs a given plugin?
Yes. Search Manage Plugins by the plugin’s name, choose Active, Inactive or both, and MainWP lists every site that has it. With Exclude plugin turned on, the same search lists the sites that still need it.
Can clients and editors keep working in WP Admin?
Yes. Each site keeps its own WP Admin and users. Network Activity records the changes they make there, with WP Admin as the source, and your MainWP Dashboard picks up new plugins, themes and posts on its next sync.
Can you give team members limited access?
Yes, with MainWP Team Control, a MainWP Pro add-on. It sets each user’s rights in your MainWP Dashboard, such as installing plugins, managing users or using Go to WP Admin.
Can you run these tasks from scripts or an AI assistant?
Yes. The MainWP REST API covers users, including CSV imports and administrator passwords, as well as posts, pages and tags, and your MainWP Dashboard’s abilities cover sites, plugins and themes. Use them from your own scripts, from MainWP Tools, or from your AI assistant with MainWP AI.
How do you stop managing a site with MainWP?
Select the site on Manage Sites and choose Remove from the bulk actions. Your MainWP Dashboard deactivates MainWP Child on a connected site as it removes it, and the site keeps its plugins, themes, users and content.