Deactivate Widget is a WordPress ability from Ultimate Addons for Elementor — usable via Easy MCP AI, which connects Claude, ChatGPT, and any AI assistant to your site.
Install Free Plugin →Deactivate Widget
WriteDisables a specific HFE widget by its slug.
Requires the Ultimate Addons for Elementor (Header Footer & Elementor) plugin on WordPress 6.9+ (the WP Abilities API). No ability registers unless the plugin's 'Enable AI Tools' master switch (uae_mcp_settings.enable_abilities) is turned on in settings. Most abilities require the 'manage_options' capability; a smaller set of read/discovery abilities (template and page listing, the Elementor builder read/list/schema abilities, active-template lookup, display-rule locations, and design tokens) instead require only 'edit_posts' or 'read'. Abilities that act on a specific page, post, or template additionally check the current user's per-object 'edit_post' (or 'delete_post') capability on that item. Separately, every non-readonly (Write or Destructive) ability is gated behind a site-wide 'Allow Modifications' setting at registration time: if it is off, none of those abilities are even registered with the WP Abilities API, regardless of capability checks — this covers all template/page CRUD, widget/extension toggles, display-rule updates, theme/settings changes, and the Elementor builder writes alike, not just the builder ones. Eight of those abilities (the seven Elementor page-builder writes — build, insert-widget, update-widget, remove-element, move-element, add-section, add-column — plus pages-create) additionally re-check this same setting explicitly inside execute() as a redundant safeguard.
What it does
This ability turns off a specific HFE widget so it's no longer available for use in Elementor, identified by its widget_slug. It looks up the widget in the plugin's registry and, if found, sets its entry in the '_hfe_widgets' option to the literal string 'disabled' — overwriting the class-name value that widgets-activate sets — then saves the option; if the slug doesn't match a known widget, it returns a 404 WP_Error instead. Because deactivating a widget that's already placed on the live site can break that content, the registration metadata instructs the calling AI to check widgets-get-usage first to confirm the widget isn't currently in use before disabling it. It requires the 'manage_options' capability and returns success plus a confirmation message on completion.
See it in action
You ask your AI assistant
"Turn off the Breadcrumbs widget, it's not being used anymore."
Inputs
| Name | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| widget_slug | string | Yes | Widget slug to deactivate. |
Returns
An object with success (boolean), widget_slug (string), and a confirmation message string.
Permission
Requires current_user_can('manage_options'); no additional execute-time gating beyond the widget-slug existence check.
More Ultimate Addons for Elementor abilities
Activate Widget
Enables a specific HFE widget by its slug.
Add Column to Section
Adds a new column to an existing section or container in an Elementor post, redistributing column widths automatically.
Add Section/Container
Adds a new structural layout element (a section with columns on legacy sites, or a flex container on container-mode sites) to an Elementor post.
Build Complete Layout
Builds a complete Elementor layout — sections, columns, and widgets — from a single JSON structure, replacing all existing content on the target post.
Bulk Toggle All Widgets
Activates or deactivates every HFE widget at once.
Clear Elementor Cache
Clears the Elementor CSS cache globally to regenerate all stylesheets.