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Disable Search icon

Disable Search

Disable the built-in front-end search capabilities of WordPress.

By Scott Reilly·Search·Free
4.7(16 reviews)
·40K+ active installs·Updated 11 months ago
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As of April 2026, Disable Search is a WordPress search plugin with 40K+ active installations and a 4.7/5 rating from 16 reviews. It has been downloaded 420K+ times in total. Requires WordPress 4.6+ and PHP false+. Available on WordPress.org since 2009. Download volume is stable this week. Top alternative: Ivory Search – WordPress Search Plugin.

4.7/516 reviews
40K+active installs
420K+total downloads
17 yearssince 2009

Overview

This plugin prevents WordPress from allowing and handling any search requests from the front-end of the site. Specifically, this plugin:

  • Prevents the search form from appearing if the theme uses the standard get_search_form() function to display the search form.
  • Prevents the search form from appearing if the theme uses a searchform.php template
  • Prevents the search item from appearing in the admin tool bar when shown on the front-end.
  • Disables the search widget.
    • Removes the Search widget from the list of available widgets
    • Deactivates any search widgets currently in use in any sidebars (they are hidden, not deleted; they’ll reappear in their original locations if this plugin gets deactivated)
  • Disables the search block.
    • Removes the Search block from the list of available blocks
    • De…
Read full description on WordPress.org

Ratings & Reviews

4.716 reviews
5 ★
14
4 ★
1
3 ★
0
2 ★
0
1 ★
1

Recent Reviews

nice
by kojot·1 month ago

super

Magnificent little plugin
by awesiome·1 year ago

Does exactly what it says. Just activate and it completely disables all default WordPress search functionality from the frontend.

The most effective way to avoid search spam
by Fumiki Takahashi·1 year ago

In 2024, numerous bots are crawling sites, generating significant search spam. Generally, site search incurs high costs, primarily because we end up paying for CPU resources consumed by spam.

If site search is not crucial for your website, I recommend activating this plugin.

Thank you, Scott, for maintaining this simple yet effective plugin!

Handful
by Dennis·4 years ago

Simple and Very Handful

Easy to Use! Works Flawlessly!
by aliakey7·4 years ago

Love this plugin! Really didn’t want a search bar on my site and this took care of the problem. I have used this plugin for about a year with no hiccups at all. Thank you for developing it!

Download Trends

Today: 92Yesterday: 99This week: 529Period total: 60K

Compatibility

WordPress4.6+ requiredTested up to 6.8.5
PHPfalse+ required

Version Adoption

v2.1
75.7%
v2.0
15.9%
Other
8.5%

Top Alternatives to Disable Search

Ivory Search – WordPress Search Plugin icon
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Relevanssi – A Better Search icon
Relevanssi – A Better Search
4.8100K+ installsUpdated 2 weeks ago
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Search Regex
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Frequently Asked Questions

Changelog

2.1.1 (2025-04-14)

  • Change: Discontinue unnecessary explicit loading of textdomain
  • Hardening: Ensure translated error message doesn’t contain markup
  • Change: Note compatibility through WP 6.8+
  • Change: Note compatibility through PHP 8.3+
  • Change: Update copyright date (2025)

…and 2 more changes

View full changelog on WordPress.org

Contributors

Scott ReillyScott Reilly
Plugin Info
Version
2.1.1
Last Updated
Apr 14, 2025
WP Requires
4.6+
Tested Up To
6.8.5
PHP Requires
false+
Active Installs
40K+
Downloads
420K+
Added
Jun 11, 2009
Business
Free

Tags

searchdisablecoffee2code

Developer

S
Scott Reilly
63 plugins0.1M+ total installs
View all plugins →

Quick Compare

Disable Search vs Ivory Search – WordPress Search Plugin→Disable Search vs Search & Replace→Disable Search vs String locator→

Plugin data sourced from WordPress.org. Analysis and metrics by PluginSift.