Do you need to disable all WordPress plugins, but you can't access the WordPress admin area? Find out in this WordPress tutorial how to disable all WordPress plugins without access to your dashboard
During WordPress troubleshooting, you will often be advised to disable all plugins and then re-enable them one by one. But what if you can't access the WordPress admin area to disable plugins?
In this article, we will show you how to easily disable all WordPress plugins when you cannot access the wp-admin area.
But before, if you have never installed WordPress discover How to Install a WordPress Blog in 7 Steps et How to search, install and activate a WordPress theme on your blog
Then back to why we are here.
Basically, there are two commonly used methods to deactivate plugins without accessing the admin area. We'll show you both and then you can pick one that looks easier.
Method 1. Disable All WordPress Plugins Using FTP
In this method, you will either have to use a FTP client, which is the file manager option in your WordPress hosting control panel.
First, you need to connect to your website using FTP client or file manager in cPanel. Once logged in, you need to access the folder /wp-content/.
Inside the wp-content folder you will see a folder called plugins. This is where WordPress stores all plugins installed on your website.
You need to right-click on the plugin folder and select Rename. Then change the name of the plugins folder to whatever you like. In our example, we'll call it “plugins.disabled”.
Once you have done this, all of your plugins will be deactivated.
Basically, WordPress looks for a folder called plugin to load plugin files. When it can't find the folder, it automatically deactivates active plugins in the database.
See also How to Manage Image URLs in WordPress
Usually this method is used when you cannot access your admin area.
If you visit the page Plugins Inside the WordPress admin area you will see notifications for all plugins that have been disabled now.
You will also notice that all your plugins are gone. Don't worry, they are all safe and you can easily restore them.
Just go back to your FTP client and navigate to the /wp-content/ folder. From there, you need to rename the “plugins.desactives” folder to plugins.
Read also: How to Use Multiple WordPress Themes on One Website
Now you can now go back to the Plugins page inside the WordPress admin area and activate one plugin at a time until your website breaks again.
Then you will know exactly which plugin caused the problem. You can then remove this plugin from your website using the FTP client or ask the plugin author for help.
Method 2. Disable all plugins using phpMyAdmin
The FTP method is definitely easier in our opinion, but you can also disable all WordPress plugins using phpMyAdmin.
Important: Before you do anything, make sure perform a full database backup. This will come in handy if something goes wrong.
Next, you need to log in to your dashboardWeb hosting. In this example, we show you a cPanel dashboard. Your hosting account dashboard may be different.
You need to click on the phpMyAdmin icon under the 'Databases' section.
This will launch phpMyAdmin in a new browser window. You will need to select your WordPress database, if it is not already selected. After that, you will be able to see the WordPress database tables.
As you can see, all tables in the database have a prefix before the table name. Your tables may have a different database prefix. wp_
Read also: How to duplicate a WordPress database with phpMyAdmin
You need to click on the wp_options table. In it, you will see rows of different options. You will need to find the 'active_plugins' option and then click on the 'Edit' to the side.
On the next screen, you will need to change the option_value field to a: 0: {}, then click the Go button to save your changes.
That's it, you have successfully deactivated all WordPress plugins using phpMyAdmin. If it was a plugin preventing you from accessing the WordPress admin area, you should be able to login now.
Other recommended resources
We also invite you to consult the resources below to go further in the grip and control of your website and blog.
- How to Display a PDF on Your WordPress Blog
- Using different backgrounds WordPress
- How to Use Multiple WordPress Themes on One Website
- How to Display YouTube Videos in WordPress
- How to manage the URLs of the images of your WordPress blog
Conclusion
There ! That's it for this tutorial. We hope this article helped you to disable all plugins in WordPress.
However, you will also be able to consult our resources, if you need more elements to carry out your projects of creation of Internet sites, by consulting our guide on the WordPress blog creation.
But, in the meantime, don't forget to leave us your Comments and suggestions in the dedicated section.
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