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How to Deactivate All Plugins When Not Able to Access WP-Admin

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Do you need to deactivate all WordPress plugins, but you are unable to access the WordPress admin area?

During WordPress troubleshooting, you will be often advised to deactivate all plugins and then reactivate them one by one. But what if you can’t access wp-admin to deactivate them?

In this article, we will show you how to easily deactivate all WordPress plugins when you are not able to access the wp-admin area.

Deactivating all WordPress plugins without accessing admin area

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If you prefer written instructions or want to move at your own pace, then continue reading the instructions below.

There are two commonly used methods to deactivate plugins without accessing the admin area of your WordPress website. You can choose the method that looks easier:

Method 1: Deactivate All WordPress Plugins Using FTP

For this method, you will need to either use an FTP client or the file manager app in your WordPress hosting control panel.

If you haven’t used FTP before, then you may want to see our guide on how to use FTP to upload files to WordPress.

First, you need to connect to your website using an FTP client or the file manager in cPanel. Once connected, you need to navigate to the /wp-content/ folder.

Inside the wp-content folder, you will see a folder called plugins. This is where WordPress stores all plugins installed on your website.

Rename plugins folder

You need to right-click the plugins folder and select ‘Rename’.

Next, change the name of the folder to anything that you like. In our example, we will call it plugins.deactivate.

Plugin folder renamed to deactivate all plugins

Once you do this, all of your plugins will be deactivated.

That’s because WordPress looks for a folder called ‘plugins’ to load the plugin files. When it does not find the folder, it automatically disables the active plugins in the database.

Usually, this method is used when you are locked out of your admin area. If the issue was with your plugins, then you should be able to log in to your WordPress admin area.

If you visit the Plugins » Installed Plugins page inside the WordPress admin area, then you will see notifications for all the plugins that have been deactivated.

WordPress plugins deactivated

You will also notice that all your plugins have disappeared now. Don’t worry; they are all safe, and you can easily restore them.

Simply switch back to your FTP client and go to the /wp-content/ folder. From here, you need to rename the plugins.deactivate folder back to plugins.

Now, you can go back to the Plugins » Installed Plugins page inside the WordPress admin area and activate one plugin at a time until your site breaks again.

At this point, you will know exactly which plugin caused the issue. You can then delete that plugin’s folder from your site using FTP or ask the plugin author for support.

Method 2: Deactivate All Plugins Using phpMyAdmin

The FTP method is definitely easier, in our opinion. However, you can also deactivate all WordPress plugins using phpMyAdmin.

Important: Before you do anything, please make a complete database backup. This will come in handy if anything goes wrong.

Next, you will need to log in to your web hosting dashboard. In this example, we are showing you a cPanel dashboard. Your hosting account’s dashboard may look different.

You will need to click the ‘phpMyAdmin’ icon under the Databases section.

phpMyAdmin in cPanel

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 WordPress database tables.

WordPress database tables

As you can see, all tables in the database have wp_ prefix before the table name. Your tables may have a different database prefix.

You need to click on the wp_options table. Inside the wp_options table, you will see rows of different options. Find the option ‘active_plugins’ and then click on the ‘Edit’ link next to it.

Editing active plugins option

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.

Reset active plugins

You have successfully deactivated all WordPress plugins using phpMyAdmin. If a plugin was stopping you from accessing WordPress admin, then you should be able to log in now.

Expert Guides on WordPress Plugins

Now that you know how to deactivate plugins when you can’t access wp-admin, you might like to see some other guides related to WordPress plugins:

We hope that this article helped you deactivate all plugins in WordPress. You may also want to learn how to set up Google Analytics goals or check out our list of the best WordPress backup plugins to keep your WordPress data safe.

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Editorial Staff

Editorial Staff at WPBeginner is a team of WordPress experts led by Syed Balkhi with over 16 years of experience in WordPress, Web Hosting, eCommerce, SEO, and Marketing. Started in 2009, WPBeginner is now the largest free WordPress resource site in the industry and is often referred to as the Wikipedia for WordPress.

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Reader Interactions

338 CommentsLeave a Reply

  1. Syed Balkhi says

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  2. phills.B says

    THANK YOU! tonight wpbeginner saved my life ;)
    you have no idea how long i’ve been looking for a fix and never would have thought it’s that simple …

  3. Martyn says

    THANK YOU!! This article got me out of an issue that I had suffered for months. I thought a WordPress update would solve the issue – but when the next update came – I couldn’t access it as it was also suffering the ‘white screen of death’

    Followed the instructions – sorted!

    Thank you again

  4. MM says

    I had the white screen throughout my entire site after updating some plugins. I did this and I was able to access admin panel, but still had white screen on front in. Wouldn’t making all them inactive bring the site back all together? Not sure why deactivating them let me access admin panel but nothing else.

  5. Peter says

    Wow! I owe the author of this article some doughnuts from McDonalds :)

    The procedure works like charm \m/

    Hurray!

  6. Elias Obeid says

    This solved my problem. An update for the [NextGEN Gallery by Photocrati] plugin was available, and the update messed things up. Maybe it ran out of memory, I don’t know. I was unable to acces my plugin site.
    I increased the memory limit as described in a post from this site, by editing the wp-config.php file on the site. After this I deactivated the plugins, logged in and reactivated them. Thanks a lot.

  7. WHITEFEATHER HUNTER says

    OK! I managed to find the htaccess_old file, rename it to htaccess and my site is back online with no more problems. I was able to identify the bad plugin (Front End Users) and now the site is allllllllll good! Thanks so much for this extremely useful post.

  8. bibhuti says

    After I renamed the plugins folder, I am able to login but….as soon as i rename the plugins folder to default ,,,i am again getting a blank page………… please help………….how should i resolve this problem

  9. Laura says

    I am very new to wordpress, which we use at work to manage all the sites we do (I am not the web designer, so I don’t know how anything other than the basic wordpress dashboard works. I do not know how to access either of the things you mention in this post. I know it was a plug-in that caused the problem because I was trying to add plug-ins when this happened. Since we host a lot of wordpress sites, all with different plug-ins, I don’t know how to only fix the problem on the site that has the issue. Also, it’s not just the admin panel with the white screen, I also get that if I try to visit the actual site. Help!

  10. olivier percheron says

    Thanks for this precious post. I’ve managed to restart my admin console with the plug-ins deactivation.
    Thanks a lot for the help !!!

  11. Mark Klinefelter says

    Your article saved my day!! Thank you so much! Had the white screen of death after I installed uber menu plugin…..Your advice got me back to the admin again to retest plugins!! Superb!

  12. Stephanie says

    I’ve spent an hour trying to get back into my site, and you solved my problem within minutes. You directions were simple and easy to follow. Thanks so much for what you do!

  13. ana says

    Hi! I ‘m having this trouble. I Know that is a plugin who is crashing my website bc it is failing since I installed it. But my problem is that even my wp-content is white so I cannot change the plugin folder name. I haven’t been able to enter trough ftp either. What should I do next? Thank you very much in advance

    • WPBeginner Support says

      Most good WordPress hosting providers offer cPanel dashboard or other similar web based interface to manage your hosting account. Log in to your hosting account and find File Manager on your cPanel dashboard. Navigate to your wp-content/plugins directory. Now you can either rename only the plugin that is causing the problem or you can rename the entire plugins directory. This should deactivate all your plugins.

      Admin

  14. Brian Dollin says

    I went in through the file manager and deleted the conflicting plugin. You have a new follower now. Thanks for the advice!
    Brian

  15. Michael Price says

    Thank you for this. I’m very new to wordpress and my own blog. Panicked with all of a sudden it didn’t work. I use HostLatte and they are of zero help to me (I need to switch). Your suggestion worked! Thank you soooo much

  16. Natasha says

    This has been beyond helpful! Actually your whole site is a goldmine of useful info for WordPress newbies like me!

    Many thanks!

  17. Baker says

    This was really helpful, thanks. I couldn’t access my wp-admin page. I have just deactivated all plugins.

  18. Dani Perkins says

    Oh wow, you just saved me so many hours of freaking out! I love you. Seriously, thanks! When I had the white screen of death just now, I followed your directions and re-did the plugins to no avail, but when I restored my theme all was right with the world.

  19. Shaneel says

    I tried using this but as soon as i enter my wp_options table i cannot find the active plugins tab..
    Could you please help me out with this?
    Thank You

  20. sally says

    thank you for the easy to follow solution….

    A plug in provider had suspended my access to WP admin with a big red screen after I asked to change from annual payments to monthly payments for the plug in.

  21. David says

    This advice, like many of your other ones, worked like a charm. The first time I switched back “on” the file, it crashed, then I deactivated again and it said no plugins files exist, then it worked.
    So some of you may have to do it twice (perhaps a cache thing, I don’t know), but it worked.
    In my case, the plug in that seemed to do it, wouldn’t reactivate as WP returned it would cause fatal error.
    So I am thrilled to know what to do going forward.
    thanks, WPBeginner!

  22. Natalie Proffitt says

    Disabling the plugins has resolved the white screen on the front end but I’m still getting white screen on /wp-admin. Any ideas how to fix this as i can’t log in to the admin panel now

  23. Edwin Lynch says

    Great post. Naturally, if you are using a security plug (that rewrites your .htaccess file for example) you might want to keep a bare WordPress .htaccess file handy, too – and upload that to the root dir. You can get a copy of the standard .htaccess file from the root of any virgin WP install. Just keep it handy for lockouts generally… As you were.

  24. David says

    I held my breath longer than a deepsea diver as I followed your instructions. It requires a degree of confidence and trust. For others, my problem was a plug-in which froze on activation, before getting the white screen treatment. I followed teh instructions about looking for wp-content, then to deactivate plug-ins. However, I decided just to delete the last plug-in only, and that did the trick! Thanks for providing such a ‘saver’!

  25. Maria says

    I deactivated all my plugins and themes except WP default theme, but the screen is still white and I cannot get to wp-admin.

  26. Roger Kamena says

    Your post SAVED ME….

    Twice!!!

    Thanks so much for writing this you don’t know how many hours of pain you saved me. Both times I had the problem I was able to resolve it in 10 minutes using your post instructions.

    Roger

  27. Lee Miller says

    Thank you for your articles on how to fix WordPress when something goes wrong.
    I’m somewhat new to WordPress and so far i have been not able to access my admin panel twice and both times it took me months to fix. The last time I couldn’t fix it so I just removed WordPress from my domain and started all over. I had to have my domain host help me get everything off so that I could start over. Extreme way to correct a problem but with low tech knowledge it was what I had to do. Good thing that I’m persistant as I would have given up blogging a long time ago. It’s my joy in writing that keeps me going.
    Thanks again for your site.
    You are helping people worldwide. USA for me. Lee

  28. karthik says

    Recently i also suffered from a problem caused from a newly activated plugin and i think this post should have come before few days

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