How to Deactivate/Disable All WordPress plugins when no access to WP-Admin?

by

You may be stuck with your WP-admin not working in some situations. In this case, WordPress would notify you to disable and re-enable all your plugins at once.

This article will help you get your work done. This article will give you different ways to deactivate your plugins. So, we can move on to the next section. 

Below are the options to disable your WordPress plugins. They are,

  1. Deactivating WordPress plugins using WP Dashboard.
  2. Bulk deactivation with WP Dashboard.
  3. Disable all WordPress plugins using FTP client software.
  4. Disable all WordPress plugins using phpMyAdmin.

Option 1: Deactivate WordPress plugin using WP Dashboard

To do this, go to your WordPress dashboard. Then select the Plugins option from the left menu. You will then get the screen below. 

Deactivate WordPress plugin using WP Dashboard

 

Now you can find the list of plugins in your dashboard. Just click on the Active option to show only the active plugins. We do not need inactive plugins as they are already inactive.

now click the plugin deactivation link

Now you can deactivate the plugins one by one. To do this, select the Deactivate button under each plugin.

Option 2: Bulk Deactivation using WP Dashboard

wordpress plugin bulk deactivation

 

First, go to your plugin section and select the ‘Deactivate’ option from the bulk action dropdown menu. Then click the “Apply” button for the bulk deactivation.

Option 3:Deactivate all WordPress plugins through FTP client software

FTP client software can be anything, but here I am going to experiment with the tool FileZilla. All enabled plugins are disabled by simply renaming a folder called ‘Plugins’.

To access the folder, first, locate the ‘wp-content’ folder and explore it. Now you will find the ‘Plugins’ folder where all the plugin details are stored. Now just rename the folder as per your requirement.

rename plugin folder using ftp client software

 

I renamed it ‘plugins-deactivated-for-test’. Now your plugins will be automatically disabled because WordPress is trying to reach the ‘Plugins’ folder. If not, all plugins will be disabled.

renamed wordpress plugin folder using ftp client software

The below screen shows the deactivated plugins. You can see the below screen on 

screen shows the deactivated plugins in wordpress

 

Option 4: Deactivate WordPress plugins By using phpMyAdmin

I’m not going to recommend this method for disabling your plugins, the three options above seem easier than this method. First, you should log into your web hosting dashboard. Here I’m using Bluehost’s web hosting application for demonstration.

Enter the “phpMyAdmin” option available under the “Databases” section.

open phpmyadmin using cpanel

First, select your WordPress database. This will allow you to see your database files. Now select ‘wp_options’ from the database.

click wp_options table from your website database

Go to the folder “wp_options”, now you see the file “active_plugins” and click on the option “edit”.

click edit in active_plugins row

Now change the option_value field to a:0:{}. Then click on the “Go” button. Finally, all plugins will be disabled.

change the option_value field in your website database

In this post, you can learn the difference between Deactivating vs Uninstalling a WordPress Plugin.

Summary

I hope you enjoyed this article and it helps you in disabling your plugins in bulk and individually. In my opinion, the first three options are the best choice for disabling all active plugins.

Hope you enjoy the post, How to disable all WordPress plugins without login to wp-admin. You can follow us on Facebook and Twitter to get the latest updates.

Leave a Comment

%d