Adminlane

WordPress' admin has looked much the same for well over a decade. Adminlane gives it a quieter, present-day look — without changing how anything works. Every screen keeps its buttons, links and forms where they were; they just look calmer. What it restyles

• Menu and toolbar – a light (or dark) side menu with clear sections, floating sub-menus and a quiet toolbar.
• Dashboard, lists and settings – cards instead of grey boxes, tables with room to breathe, settings grouped in panels, status filters as pills.
• Posts, Pages and your other content – an overview on top (published, drafts, scheduled, without a featured image), a thumbnail per row and a short status line: categories, dates and word count.
• The classic editor (for the same content types) – a big title, a paper-like writing area, card-style boxes, a save bar that stays in view and Ctrl/⌘+S to save.
• Media, users, comments, plugins, themes, menus, Site Health, tools – the same style everywhere, including the media window and the code editor.
• Login screen – in the same style, light or dark after the device.

Five appearances, six accent colours Each user picks their own look from the toolbar (the half-moon icon — a small card points it out the first time) or on their profile: Light, Soft, Dim, Dark, or Follow the system.

• Soft sits between Light and Dark, closer to Light: a soft grey menu and a light grey page under white cards, for less glare during long sessions.
• Dim sits between Soft and Dark, closer to Dark: a dark look in lifted slate greys with gentler contrast, for evenings — or for anyone who finds Dark too black.
• Dark covers every WordPress screen, so moving between screens never flashes white.

On top of that, each user chooses an accent colour — Blue, Violet, Teal, Green, Orange or Pink — for buttons, links and the current menu item, in every appearance. Both switch at once with a short cross-fade, without reloading the page. Staging or live? You can tell at a glance On a local, development or staging copy of a site, the toolbar shows a small badge after the site name and a coloured line along its top edge, so a test copy is never mistaken for the live site. It follows WordPress' own WP_ENVIRONMENT_TYPE setting, so there is nothing to set up — and nothing is shown on the live site. Other plugins stay as their authors made them Screens added by other plugins keep their own design; only the menu and the toolbar around them change. That includes the lists and edit screens of things a plugin keeps to itself, such as ACF field groups or gallery and form builders: the overview, thumbnails and editor style are for content visitors can see on the site — Posts, Pages and public types like a theme's "Museums" or WooCommerce's products. Plugins that use WordPress' standard tables and forms usually look fine restyled too — each user can switch that on under Profile → Other plugins' screens. Looks only Adminlane does not add settings pages, change menus, track anything or call outside services. Pause it from the toolbar (or untick it on your profile) and the admin is exactly as before. It stores a few small preferences per user (appearance, accent colour, paused, other plugins' screens, and whether the first-time hint has been seen), which are removed when you delete the plugin. The block editor, the site editor and the Customizer have their own design and are left alone.

1.0.0

• First release on WordPress.org.
• The whole classic admin restyled: menu, toolbar, dashboard, every list, settings, media library and media window, users and profile, comments, plugins, themes, menus, widgets, Site Health, privacy, tools, updates, the code editor and the login screen.
• Five appearances per user — Light, Soft, Dim, Dark and Follow the system — from the toolbar or the profile, switched without reloading.
• Six accent colours per user (Blue, Violet, Teal, Green, Orange, Pink) for buttons, links and the current menu item, in every appearance.
• A short cross-fade when the appearance or accent changes (skipped when the device asks for reduced motion).
• A badge and a coloured line in the toolbar on local, development and staging copies of a site, from WP_ENVIRONMENT_TYPE.
• Posts, Pages and other public content: an overview on top, thumbnails, and a status line per row (categories, dates, word count), drawn in place with no layout jump.
• Classic editor: big title, paper-like writing area, card-style boxes, a save bar that stays in view, Ctrl/⌘+S to save.
• Other plugins' screens keep their own design by default; only the menu and toolbar around them change. Can be switched on per user.
• Works with WordPress 7's page transitions: the menu and toolbar switch in one piece, without flicker.
• Pause per user from the toolbar; settings from MuseumLite – Editor Skin (the plugin's earlier, private name) are carried over.