Maintenance Redirect

by Peter Hardy-vanDoorn

Description

This plugin is intended primarily for designers / developers that need to allow clients to preview sites before being available to the general public or to temporarily hide your WordPress site while undergoing major updates.

Any logged in user with WordPress administrator privileges will be allowed to view the site regardless of the settings in the plugin. The exact privilege can be set using a filter hook – see FAQs.

The behaviour of this plugin can be enabled or disabled at any time without losing any of the settings configured in its settings pane. However, deactivating the plugin is recommended versus having it activated while disabled.

When redirect is enabled it can send 2 different header types. “200 OK” is best used for when the site is under development and “503 Service Temporarily Unavailable” is best for when the site is temporarily taken offline for small amendments. If used for a long period of time, 503 can damage your Google ranking.

A list of IP addresses can be set up to completely bypass maintenance mode. This option is useful when needing to allow a client’s entire office to access the site while in maintenance mode without needing to maintain individual access keys. See FAQ below about working through a proxy.

Access keys work by creating a cookie on the user’s computer that will be checked for when maintenance mode is active. When a new key is created, a link to create the access key cookie will be emailed to the email address provided. Access can then be revoked either by disabling or deleting the key.

This plugin allows three methods of notifying users that a site is undergoing maintenance:

They can be presented with a simple message.
They can be presented with a custom HMTL page.
They can be redirected to a static HTML page. This static page will need to be uploaded to the server via FTP or some other method. This plugin DOES NOT include any way to upload the static page file. Any URL can be used here, and it doesn’t need to be on the same server (so you could redirect back to the client’s current site if you’re working on a dev site, for example). However, it should NOT be the URL of a WordPress page or post on the same site as this will result in an infinite redirect loop.

Installation

Upload the jf3-maintenance-mode folder to your plugins directory (usually /wp-content/plugins/).
Activate the plugin through the Plugins menu in WordPress.
Configure the settings through the Maintenance Redirect Settings panel.

Screenshots

About & Info tab
Header Type tab
Unrestricted IP Addresses tab
Access Keys tab
Maintenance Message tab showing Message only
Maintenance Message tab showing Redirect
Maintenance Message tab showing HTML

Faq

What does Maintenance Redirect block?

This plugin is designed to block only the normal display of pages in the web browser. It will not effect any other calls to WordPress, such as the Rest API.

This means that services such as the PayPal and Stripe integrations in WooCommerce, for example, are still able to function for testing WooCommerce stores.

It also means that all of the usual WordPress REST endpoints are active. If you wish to completely lock down your site’s data then you will need to find an additional solution to block those calls.

How can I bypass the redirect programatically?

There is a filter which allows you to programatically bypass the redirection block:

wpjf3_matches

This allows you to run pretty much any test you like, although be aware that the whole redirection thing runs before the $post global is set up, so WordPress conditionals such as is_post() and is_tax() are not available.

This example looks in the $_SERVER global to see if any part of the URL contains “demo”

function my_wpjf3_matches( $wpjf3_matches ) {
    if ( stristr( $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'], 'demo' ) ) 
        $wpjf3_matches[] = "<!-- Demo -->";
    return $wpjf3_matches;
}
add_filter( "wpjf3_matches", "my_wpjf3_matches" );

Props to @brianhenryie for this!

How can I let my logged-in user see the front end?

By default, Maintenance Redirect uses the manage_options capability, but that is normally only applied to administrators. As it stands, a user with a lesser permissions level, such as editor, is able to view the admin side of the site, but not the front end. You can change this using this filter:

wpjf3_user_can

This filter is used to pass a different WordPress capability to check if the logged-in user has permission to view the site and thus bypass the redirection, such as edit_posts. Note that this is run before $post is set up, so WordPress conditionals such as is_post() and is_tax() are not available. However, it’s not really meant for programatically determining whether a user should have access, but rather just changing the default capability to be tested, so you don’t really need to do anything other than the example below.

function my_wpjf3_user_can( $capability ) {
    return "edit_posts";
}
add_filter( "wpjf3_user_can", "my_wpjf3_user_can" );

Does this work through a proxy?

Yes, there is no problem when using access keys. However, using the IP address whitelist is now a little more problematic as, due to an over-zealous security researcher, I have been forced to drop the support for testing the http X-FORWARDED-FOR header which supplies the original IP address rather than the proxy IP address. This is unfortunate as it means that you will have to whitelist the proxy’s IP address rather than the end-user’s address.

Reviews

Excellent plugin

By Mauro (maurofon) on August 14, 2025

The plugin is very good and is always my choice when I have to develop a new project. I have a small but important suggestion:

Add a code editor to Maintenance Mode HTML.

It is difficult to keep the code tidy without it.

Works perfectly

By crdunst on January 31, 2025

Really easy to use, and does the job perfectly. Thanks.

Amazing job

By veetihsu on January 9, 2023

It works just fine. Definitely recommend!!

A lifesaver! Lightweight, no cruft plugin. Where can I donate?

By Anne-Mieke Bovelett (annebovelett) on January 2, 2023

Great plugin! I used to apply password protection via Plesk (HTTP Auth) to shield my playgrounds. But now I am in a situation where that affects what I am doing in the backend. Creating a site with Cwicly, which starts puking when you use HTTP Auth, unless you know how to whitelist your server, which I don't. I'm not a hoster. Maintenance Redirect is the PERFECT solution. Simple to set up, no screaming "buy our pro" messages (there is no pro, as far as I know).

Dear developers, tell me, how can I buy you coffee?

Very useful, no nonsense plugin

By Bence Fodor (webmotion) on November 18, 2022

It works well and does not have a premium offering. The link generation feature is super useful. There was an issue recently with PHP 8.x and it was fixed quite quickly. Thanks, Peter!

This is perfect

By pinkeyegraphics on October 23, 2022

This plugin is great. I've used various other 'coming soon' type plugins and this is the best. It allows me to easily show clients their website before launch, and work on a site with the public seeing a custom holding page. And it's light, free, and well-updated. I will be using this again.

Fantastic plugin and great support!

By Manni02 on July 12, 2022

I've been using this plugin for years and it's been working perfectly. I really enjoy the ability to keep working on a website while it's out for maintenance, and let either everyone on our network to do so (useful when testing from various clients such as PCs, iPad etc) or selected testers from outside our organisation (different IP address) to access it as well. The new 1.8.1 version has a handy feature that allows to add the current IP address with a single click, which is useful as our host doesn't give us a fixed IP, so I have to do this everytime I'm about to switch maintenance mode on. The plugin is great when initially designing a site, before it's open to the wider public but we need to allow access to a few usewrs to test it/provide feedback, and it's still very useful when we have to take the site off for maintenance, for example when we moved hosting recently. It also provides various ways to customise the "maintenance" message, from super quick and easy to more sophisticated. I needed support recently as there was a minor glitch on a new release, and it was explained and fixed right away. Overall, it's a great plugin, with great support, and it's free. Many thanks to the author for taking the time to maintain it and for sharing it with us.

Havent found a better solution!

By THAWK on September 30, 2021

This tool is great, it allows you to redirect an entire wordpress while still allowing users to login to /wp-admin. It even allows for ?paramaters in the external url, many plugins I tried strip these....

Great Plugin

By rmzwr on January 8, 2021

Love it. thank you for this awesome plugin!

Perfect for MainWP install

By Charlie (charliemoss) on July 16, 2020

Works perfectly. Nobody needs to visit a MainWP site except me so a redirect is perfect.

Changelog

2.1.1

Removed the testing of X-FORWARDED-FOR header to get the IP address for the whitelisting bypass as some over-zealous security researcher says that can be spoofed. Access through a proxy must now be made by whitelisting the proxy IP rather than the end-user’s.

2.0.1

Added clarification to readme and on-screen info about the scope of what this plugin blocks (see FAQs)

2.0

Uodated minimum requirements for WP (5.1) and PHP (5.6).
Updated the UI with tabs for each of the sections.
Changed the activation method from a select menu to a toggle switch.
Split the HTML and Message storage in the database to separate fields. When the plugin is updated the message text should be copied across, but please do double-check. I suggest that you make a copy of your message or HTML before updating just in case.
Tweaked the HTML used for the Message option.
Added an option to delete all of the plugin’s settings and database tables the next time that the plugin is deleted using the Plugins screen. There are caveats – see the About & Options tab in the plugin settings page for more info.
Added responsive styling for the IP addresses and Access Keys tables to better display on mobile phone screens.
Tidied up some of the on-screen information.
Added an about section with a link to “buy me a coffee” 🙂
Additional minor code tweaks

1.8.3

Fixed sprintf() PHP warning.

1.8.2

Added plugin status to the admin bar.
Fixed bug where body text was being output twice.

1.8.1

Fixed Update Settings button not working.

1.8

Added button to copy full URL of an Access Key link to the clipboard.
You can now click on your IP or Class C address to add it to the unrestricted IP addresses field.
General hardening of translated text escaping.

1.7

Added links to plugin screen and the dashboard notification to go to the Settings page.
Added information to the Site Health screen.

1.6

Added wpjf3_matches filter to allow programatical bypasses. Thanks to @brianhenryie for this.
Added wpjf3_user_can filter to allow the WordPress capability check to be changed so logged-in users can be allowed to bypass the redirect.

1.5.3

Fixed ability to set IP address using Class C wildcard (eg, 192.168.0.*) – thanks to @tsouts for bringing that to my attention.

1.5.2

Tiny translation tweak

1.5.1

Phooey! Found a couple of translation strings that I missed on the previous commit!

1.5

Now translatable! I’m a typical Englishman who doesn’t speak any other language, so at time of release there aren’t any translation packs available. However, if you’re interested in contributing, just pop over to https://translate.wordpress.org/ and get translating!
Minimum WordPress requirement now 4.6 due to usage of certain translation bits & bobs.

1.4

Plugin taken over by @petervandoorn due to being unmaintained for over 4 years.
Changed name to Maintenance Redirect
Setting added to choose whether to return 200 or 503 header
Added nonces and other, required, security checks
General code modernisation

1.3

Updated to return 503 header when enabled to prevent indexing of maintenance page.
Also, wildcards are allowed to enable entire class C ranges. Ex: 10.10.10.*
A fix affecting some installations using a static page has been added. Thanks to Dorthe Luebbert.

1.2

Fixed bug in Unrestricted IP table creation.

1.1

Updated settings panel issue in WordPress 3.0 and moved folder structure to work properly with WordPress auto install.

1.0

First release. No Changes Yet.