James Morrison

Adds various tweaks the WordPress Admin UI. More specifically to increase visibility and usability. All features are in a constant state of beta, there are no guarantees and a modern browser is mandatory!
Special thanks to John O’Nolan’s UI Labs plugin which gave me the inspiration to tinker with the UI and started me off.

UI Tweaks

Adds various tweaks the WordPress Admin UI...

Automattic

Daniel López Sánchez

Roberto Aranda

Desktop Mode renders /wp-admin as a desktop operating system. Admin screens open as draggable, resizable, minimizable windows on a desktop, with a left-edge dock built from the admin menu. The classic admin stays untouched for everyone else, and deactivating the plugin restores vanilla Core exactly.
Built and maintained by <a href="https://automattic.com" rel="nofollow ugc">Automattic</a> — the company behind WordPress.com, Jetpack, WooCommerce, and Tumblr. Zero Core patches: every feature is wired through public WordPress hooks.
<h4>Highlights</h4>
<ul>
<li>Per-user opt-in. An admin-bar toggle flips a user-meta flag; nobody else sees any change.</li>
<li>Window system. Iframe windows load admin pages chromelessly. Native windows render directly in the parent DOM via a public registration API. Both share drag, resize, minimize, maximize, fullscreen, and detach-to-new-tab.</li>
<li>Dock + taskbar. Left-edge dock for core menus; bottom macOS-style pill taskbar for plugin menus. Letter-badge icon fallback for plugins without icon art.</li>
<li>Virtual desktops (“Spaces”). Multiple desktops per user, each with its own window set. Overview grid surfaces the Spaces switcher and thumbnails.</li>
<li>Arrange & snap. Cascade, Tile, Overview, Snap-to-grid. Plugins contribute custom entries.</li>
<li>Wallpaper & widget registries. Server- and client-side registration. CSS presets plus canvas (WebGL/2D) wallpapers with collision-aware surface data for snow/rain/physics effects.</li>
<li>Desktop icons. Wallpaper-layer shortcuts that open native windows or admin URLs.</li>
<li>AI Copilot (optional). Cmd+K palette backed by an agentic loop with built-in search tools. Disabled until you supply an API key. See “External services” below.</li>
<li>Slash commands & palettes. Public registration APIs for plugin authors.</li>
<li>Cross-frame drag bridge. Media-library attachments drag across iframe boundaries.</li>
<li>Session persistence. Window stack (including desktops, focus, state) restored across reloads.</li>
<li>i18n. Full gettext coverage across PHP and TypeScript; Spanish translation shipped.</li>
</ul>
<h4>For plugin authors</h4>
Desktop Mode is built to be extended. Every significant behavior is hookable — add a desktop icon, register a dock item, gate desktop mode by role, react to window events, or register a native window, all from your own plugin with zero patches here.
Comprehensive PHP and JavaScript hook surface, plus stable <code>desktop_mode_register_*</code> functions for windows, widgets, wallpapers, icons, window tabs, commands, settings tabs, and AI tools. See the <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/desktop-mode/tree/trunk/docs" rel="nofollow ugc">developer docs on GitHub</a>.
<h4>External services</h4>
This plugin’s optional AI Copilot sends data to OpenAI (<code>https://api.openai.com/v1/responses</code>) when, and only when, an administrator configures an OpenAI API key in Settings → AI. With no key configured, no external requests are made.
When the AI Copilot is enabled and a user invokes it (via Cmd+K or the slash-command palette):
<ul>
<li>What is sent: the user’s prompt, the conversation history for the active session, the chosen model identifier (e.g. <code>gpt-4o-mini</code>), and tool-call metadata. The plugin’s built-in tools (<code>search_posts</code>, <code>search_pages</code>, <code>search_comments</code>) run WordPress’s native keyword search and may include excerpts of the matching posts/pages/comments in tool results, which are then sent back to OpenAI as part of the agentic loop.</li>
<li>When it is sent: on user-initiated AI requests, and (if enabled) on comment-save hooks for spam analysis. Comment spam analysis runs server-side as part of the comment-insert flow. Posts, pages, and taxonomy terms are not sent automatically.</li>
<li>Why it is sent: to obtain model completions and tool-call decisions that drive the AI Copilot.</li>
<li>Who provides the service: OpenAI, L.L.C. — see the <a href="https://openai.com/policies/row-terms-of-use/" rel="nofollow ugc">OpenAI Terms of Use</a> and the <a href="https://openai.com/policies/row-privacy-policy/" rel="nofollow ugc">OpenAI Privacy Policy</a>.</li>
</ul>
The AI Copilot’s provider layer is also extensible: third-party plugins may register additional providers via <code>desktop_mode_register_ai_provider()</code>. Those providers may send data to other endpoints; review each plugin’s own privacy disclosure separately.
No other external services are contacted by this plugin.
<h3>Credits</h3>
Desktop Mode is brought to you by <a href="https://automattic.com" rel="nofollow ugc">Automattic</a>. The plugin is open source under GPLv2-or-later; contributions are welcome on <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/desktop-mode" rel="nofollow ugc">GitHub</a>.
<h4>Third-party libraries</h4>
The plugin bundles the following third-party JavaScript library, loaded on demand only when a feature that needs it is in use:
<ul>
<li><a href="https://pixijs.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">PixiJS</a> (MIT License) — used by the interactive OS Settings → About scene, the Content Graph window, and built-in canvas wallpapers (e.g. the animated WordPress logo). PixiJS is loaded from the plugin’s own <code>assets/vendor/</code> directory; no CDN requests are made.</li>
</ul>

Desktop Mode


Great for apps and for keeping focused on the job.


Very interesting experience


Un-freaking-believable !Ok, may be more than one word. This will be beyond excellent when completed and some of the bugs are fixed. I hope one thing returns that was there in the earlier versions - if you clicked anywhere on the desktop, all open "windows" (folders) would minimize, and once minimized, clicking on the desktop again, all the windows would come back. Now, we have to right mouse click and choose a menu option to do those things - WHY?Anyway, love this plugin, it has some interesting ways to show some things... the new screens are really good.


One Word !


Really interesting concept and one of the more unique WordPress admin experience plugins I’ve tested recently.



I especially like the desktop/workspace direction and the overall creativity behind the UI.



I spend a lot of time testing modern admin/workspace plugins and Desktop Mode definitely stands out with its own approach.



Looking forward to seeing how the project evolves 👌






Modern and creative admin experience


This plugin blowed my mind. It turns your wordpress admin in such a beautiful dashboard. What an experience. Contratulations to the owners of the project!


One word... Wow!

Reimagines the WordPress admin as a desktop OS with draggable windows and a dock. Per-user opt-in. By Automattic.

UI Tweaks vs Desktop Mode