The week's largest handover: WP Crontrol, at 300,000+ installs, moved from John Blackbourn to Syed Balkhi on 08 Oct 2026. The record carries the full transfer evidence.
Other hands changed too: a 2-plugin portfolio led by PublishPress Taxonomies – Tag, Category, and Taxonomy Manager – Autotagger Automatically Add Terms (40,000+) moved from Steve Burge to PublishPress on 08 Oct 2026; Bosa Starter Sites (30,000+) moved from keonthemes to Bosa Themes on 03 Oct 2026; a 20-plugin portfolio led by Cron Logger (1,000+) moved from EdwardBock to Palasthotel GmbH on 05 Oct 2026. In all, 32 plugins changed hands across 12 handovers this week.
103 plugins left the directory this week. The largest by last recorded installs: Custom Login Page Customizer – Login Designer (30,000+), Post Snippets – Custom WordPress Code Snippets Customizer (20,000+), Timber (20,000+). wordpress.org removes a closed plugin's page the same day it closes; each last good record is preserved in the registry.
20 plugins returned to the directory, led by Subscribe to Comments (10,000+) and WP Associate Post R2 (2,000+).
After long silence: WP Downgrade | Specific Core Version, at 100,000+ installs shipped a release on 06 Oct 2026, at least 540 days after its previous one. 75 more did the same; the dormancy record has each.
The week in numbers
| Ownership transfers | 32 |
|---|---|
| Closures | 103 |
| Returns | 20 |
| Dormancy breaks | 76 |
The record, in full
- The rolling transfer record: every handover of the trailing 90 days, with evidence.
- The dormancy record: plugins past 540 days without a release, most widely installed first.
- Closed in 2026: every plugin removed this year, last good record preserved.
This brief is assembled from the registry’s event records for the seven days shown. Every claim links to the record that carries its evidence.