Add Admin CSS
by Scott Reilly 4.9 (35 reviews)

Add Admin CSS

Easily define additional CSS (inline and/or by URL) to be added to all administration pages.

Add Admin CSS ranks #1,883 among WordPress.org plugins with 10,000+ active installations, is #247 of 8,848 in the Customization category, a 4.9/5 rating from 35 reviews, and was last updated Dec 8, 2025. Data from WordPress.org, refreshed twice daily — see methodology.

Tested up to WP 6.9 (Current: 7.1.4)
v2.5.1 Current Version v2.5.1
Updated 10 months ago Last Update on 08 Dec, 2025
Refreshed 2 days ago Last Refreshed on
#247 of 8,848 in Customization Top 5% by installs
View on WordPress.org
Rank
#1,883
— No change
Active Installs
10K+
-29.3%
KW Avg Position
26.4
0.4 worse
Downloads
140.1K
+31 today
Support Resolved
0%
— No change
Rating
98%
Review 4.9 out of 5
4.9 (35 reviews)

Next Milestone 20K

Total Progress 41.4%
10K+ 20K+
480
Ranks to Climb
-
Growth Needed
8,000,000
Active Installs
Pro

Unlock Exact Install Count

See the precise estimated active installs for this plugin, calculated from real-time ranking data.

  • Exact install estimates within tiers
  • Track install growth over time
  • Milestone progress predictions
Upgrade to Pro
Need 5,861 more installs to reach 20K+

Rank Changes

1,878 1,883 1,888 1,893 1,898 25-10-2026 26-10-2026 27-10-2026 28-10-2026 29-10-2026 30-10-2026 31-10-2026 01-11-2026
1,878 1,884 1,891 1,897 1,903 17-10-2026 18-10-2026 19-10-2026 20-10-2026 21-10-2026 22-10-2026 23-10-2026 24-10-2026 25-10-2026 26-10-2026 27-10-2026 28-10-2026 29-10-2026 30-10-2026 31-10-2026 01-11-2026
Current #1,883
Change
Best #

Upgrade to Pro

Unlock 30-day and 90-day rank history charts with a Pro subscription.

Upgrade Now

Active Installs Growth

Active Installs 0,000,000+
Growth +0.0%
Peak 0,000,000

Downloads Growth

30 40 50 60 70 80 90 25-10-2026 26-10-2026 27-10-2026 28-10-2026 29-10-2026 30-10-2026 31-10-2026 01-11-2026
0 50 100 150 17-10-2026 18-10-2026 19-10-2026 20-10-2026 21-10-2026 22-10-2026 23-10-2026 24-10-2026 25-10-2026 26-10-2026 27-10-2026 28-10-2026 29-10-2026 30-10-2026 31-10-2026 01-11-2026
Downloads
Growth
Peak

Upgrade to Pro

Unlock 30-day, 90-day, and yearly download history charts with a Pro subscription.

Upgrade Now

Reviews & Ratings

4.9
35 reviews
Overall 98%
5
34 (97%)
4
0 (0%)
3
0 (0%)
2
1 (3%)
1
0 (0%)

Security History

Source: WPVulnerability

1 known vulnerability on record · 0 in the last 24 months · checked 6 days ago

  1. Add Admin CSS [add-admin-css] < 2.5

    CVE-2024-6547 · Fixed in v2.5

TL;DR

AI summary of the plugin's readme

This plugin is for WordPress site administrators who want to customize the look of the admin dashboard. It solves the problem of easily adding custom CSS, either inline or via file URLs, to all admin pages without editing core files.

  • Add inline CSS to admin
  • Add CSS files by URL
  • Applies to all admin pages
  • Filter to customize CSS output
  • Filter to customize CSS files list
  • Filter to enable/disable CSS output

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about Add Admin CSS

Yes, via the "Admin CSS Files" input field on the plugin's settings page.
By default, the CSS is added for every admin page on the site and for every user. One option, if you wish to only use CSS and you want to limit use of CSS to certain admin pages, is to preface your selectors with admin page specific class(es) on the 'body' tag to ensure CSS only applies on certain admin pages. (e.g. body.edit-php h1 { color: purple; }). Otherwise, programmatically you have full control over that behavior via the 'c2c_add_admin_css_disable_css' filter (see Hooks section). You'd hook that filter, determine the context, and decide if the CSS should be output or not. You could check what page is being loaded and/or who is the current user.
By default, the CSS is added for every admin page on the site and for every user. Programmatically you have full control over that behavior via the 'c2c_add_admin_css_disable_css' filter (see Hooks section). You'd hook that filter, determine the context, and decide if the CSS should be output or not. You could check who is the current user and/or what page is being loaded. There is currently no way to do this purely with CSS or through any other setting provided by the plugin.
It is certainly possible that you can put yourself in an unfortunate position by supplying CSS that could hide critical parts of admin pages, making it seemingly impossible to fix or revert your changes. Fortunately, there are a number of approaches you can take to correct the problem. The recommended approach is to visit the URL for the plugin's settings page, but appended with a special query parameter to disable the output of its CSS. The plugin's settings page would typically be at a URL like https://example.com/wp-admin/themes.php?page=add-admin-css%2Fadd-admin-css.php. Append &c2c-no-css=1 to that, so that the URL is https://example.com/wp-admin/themes.php?page=add-admin-css%2Fadd-admin-css.php&c2c-no-css=1 (obviously change example.com with the domain name for your site). There are other approaches you can use, though they require direct database or server filesystem access: Some browsers (such as Firefox, via View -> Page Style -> No Style) allow you to disable styles for sites loaded in that tab. Other browsers may also support such functionality natively or through an extension. Chrome has an extension called Web Developer that adds the functionality. If you're familiar with doing so and have an idea of what CSS style you added that is causing problems, you can use your browser's developer tools to inspect the page, find the element in question, and disable the offending style. In the site's wp-config.php file, define a constant to disable output of the plugin-defined CSS: define( 'C2C_ADD_ADMIN_CSS_DISABLED', true );. You can then visit the site's admin. Just remember to remove that line after you've fixed the CSS (or at least change "true" to "false"). This is an alternative to the query parameter approach described above, though it persists while the constant remains defined. There will be an admin notice on the plugin's setting page to alert you to the fact that the constant is defined and effectively disabling the plugin from adding any CSS. Presuming you know how to directly access the database: within the site's database, find the row with the option_name field value of c2c_add_admin_css and delete that row. The settings you saved for the plugin will be deleted and it will be like you've installed the plugin for the first time. If your server has WP-CLI installed, you can delete the plugin's setting from the commandline: wp option delete c2c_add_admin_css The initial reaction by some might be to remove the plugin from the server's filesystem. This will certainly disable the plugin and prevent the CSS you configured through it from taking effect, restoring the access and functionality to the backend. However, reinstalling the plugin will put you back into the original predicament because the plugin will use the previously-configured settings, which wouldn't have changed.
The plugin's syntax highlighting of CSS (available as of WP 4.9) honors the built-in setting for whether syntax highlighting should be enabled or not. To disable syntax highlighting, go to your profile page. Next to "Syntax Highlighting", click the checkbox labeled "Disable syntax highlighting when editing code". Note that this checkbox disables syntax highlighting throughout the admin interface and not just specifically for the plugin's settings page.
Yes. The tests are not packaged in the release .zip file or included in plugins.svn.wordpress.org, but can be found in the plugin's GitHub repository.

Sign In / Register

You need to sign in or register to use this feature.