How to roll back a WordPress plugin update?

Yesterday I updated WordPress SEO by Yoast to version 1.2.8.4 from version 1.2.7 and now my admin panel is messed up. I searched through the support forum but the plugin author has not replied to the existing threads related to same update issues.

So I think a roll back to a previous version of plugin would be the best option until a fix to the above issue is released by the plugin author.

I have database backup files and my home directory backup files available. I searched in the WordPress forums but couldn't find exact details on how to roll back a plugin update.

Can someone here guide me with the procedure or refer me to a solution?

Yesterday I updated WordPress SEO by Yoast to version 1.2.8.4 from version 1.2.7 and now my admin panel is messed up. I searched through the support forum but the plugin author has not replied to the existing threads related to same update issues.

So I think a roll back to a previous version of plugin would be the best option until a fix to the above issue is released by the plugin author.

I have database backup files and my home directory backup files available. I searched in the WordPress forums but couldn't find exact details on how to roll back a plugin update.

Can someone here guide me with the procedure or refer me to a solution?

• plugins
• plugin-wp-seo-yoast

Share Improve this question edited Dec 24, 2018 at 15:41 butlerblog 5,14133 gold badges2828 silver badges4444 bronze badges asked Sep 19, 2012 at 4:50 KeshavKeshav

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2 Answers 2

Sorted by: Reset to default 12

Unless the plugin has made significant database changes, you could follow these steps to downgrade it:

1. Download and extract the old version from the plugin repository
2. Disable the plugin
3. Log on to your server with FTP or SSH
4. Upload the old plugin directory to wp-content/plugins/. (You would want to overwrite the newer version.)
5. Reactivate the plugin

Here's SEO by Yoast version 1.2.7

There's now a plugin that does this very easily called WP Rollback https://wordpress/plugins/wp-rollback/

It does NOT account for any database changes your plugin may have done between versions so backups and common sense best practices are still really important. But for your basic rollback or even incremental rolling forward of really outdated versions this is really valuable.