The Easiest Way to Discover do_action, add_action & add_filter in Plugins

Learn how to quickly find all do_action, add_action, and add_filter calls inside any WordPress plugin — even if you’re not a developer. I show two simple methods: searching with Notepad++ and using the command line with grep. Perfect for anyone trying to understand what hooks a plugin provides.

Notepad++

This one is reasonably easy to do: download and install the application and then do a find in files Search -> Find in files ( CTRL + SHIFT + F)

1. What we are looking for in this case add_action
2. file type *.php
3. Where to look select the plugins base directory
4. Find all our Add_actions

Any Command Prompt with Grep available

This is simple, you can run these without these the . > do-action.txt if you want them output on the screen, but it’s easier if you do it on output toa text file to allow you to look through it easier.

grep -RIn --include="*.php" "do_action" . > do-action.txt
grep -RIn --include="*.php" "add_action" . > add-action.txt
grep -RIn --include="*.php" "add_filter" . > add-filter.txt

grep -RIn --include="*.php" "do_action" . > do-action.txt
grep -RIn --include="*.php" "add_action" . > add-action.txt
grep -RIn --include="*.php" "add_filter" . > add-filter.txt