Often times during troubleshooting, many sites will recommend deactivate all plugins and activate them one by one. What’s worst is sometimes you get locked out of your WordPress admin panel, so you can’t even deactivate the plugins in an easy way. If you have ever faced the white screen of death, then you know exactly what we are talking about. In this article, we will show you how to deactivate all WordPress plugins when not able to access wp-admin area.
There are two methods to disabling your plugins. One requires you to use FTP, and the other requires you to use phpMyAdmin.
Video Tutorial
If you don’t like video tutorials or want to move at your own pace, then continue reading the instructions below.
Deactivate All Plugins Using FTP
In this method, you will need to either use a FTP client, or your host’s file manager. If you haven’t used FTP before, then you may want to see our how to use FTP to upload files to WordPress.
First you need to connect to your website using FTP client, or File Manager in cPanel. Once connected, you need to navigate to the /wp-content/ folder.
Inside wp-content folder, you will see a folder called plugins. This is where WordPress stores all plugins installed on your website.
Right click on the plugins folder and select Rename. Change the name of the plugins folder to anything that you like. In our example, we will call it “plugins.deactivate”. Once you do this, all of your plugins will be deactivated.
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 login to your WordPress admin area.
Once you do that, go back to your /wp-content/ folder and rename “plugins.deactivate” back to plugins. Now you can activate one plugin at a time until your site breaks again. At which point, you will know exactly which plugin caused the issue.
Deactivate all plugins using phpMyAdmin
The FTP method is definitely easier in our opinion, however you can also deactivate all plugins using phpMyAdmin.
First you will need to login 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 on 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 WordPress database tables.
As you can see that all tables in the database have wp_ prefix before table name. Your tables may have a different prefix.
You need to click on the wp_options table. Inside wp_options table you will see rows of different options. You will need to find the option ‘active_plugins’ and then click on the ‘Edit’ Link next to it.
On the next screen, you will need to change the option_value field to a:0:{} and then click on Go button to save your changes.
That’s all, you have successfully deactivated all WordPress plugins using phpMyAdmin. If it was a plugin stopping you from accessing WordPress admin area, then you should be able to login now.
We hope that this article helped you deactivate all plugins in WordPress. You may also want to see our list of 7 best WordPress backup plugins.
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You’re the man. Renaming my plugins folder in file manager worked a charm
Glad our article could help
Thank you! You saved my website! Thanks a lot !!!!!!!!
Glad our article could help
Oh my gosh! This worked perfectly!! Thank you so much
You’re welcome
I’M NOT A DEVELOPER – Please help!
I was having issues logging into wordpress so I deactivated all plugins in cPanel phpMyAdmin. Now, I cannot find my active plugins in wp-option/option name. When I look in wp-content there is a plugins.bak file which shows all of my installed plugins. How do I reactivate them?
You would want to reactivate them manually in your wp-admin area of your site
Hi
I deactivated all the plugins by changing the ‘plugin’ name in FileZilla. But the problem is I can’t enter my website at all to see what plugins aren’t working. This is what comes up when I try to login: Cannot modify header information – headers already sent by (output started at /home/content/p3pnexwpnas17_datahtml/wp-config.php:1) in /home/content/p3pnexwpnas17_data0/html/wp-includes/pluggable.php on line 1223
please help me! thanks!
You may want to try manually updating your WordPress files to see if it is an error in a modified file: https://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/how-to-manually-update-wordpress-using-ftp/
Hi
Through Godaddy, I have an sftp so it didn’t work with. When I changed the protocol to sftp ssh file transfer a dialogue appeared saying ‘the server key is unknown…….do you want to trust it …etc’ what do I do?
Thanks!
It is letting you know you have not used that key before, if you reach out to your hosting provider with the information they can confirm the key is for them
Thanks,this really solved my problem…
Glad it could help
Thank you so much! That helped a lot with the error that crashed my page. And saved my night. And my sanity.
Glad our guide could help
This was a perfect step-by-step to help a rookie solve a 500 error. THANK YOU!
Glad our guide could help
This worked great for me to solve the 500 error. Thanks!
Renaming the Plugins directory via cPanel file manager did the trick! Thanks so much!
Thank you so so much!
BTW I used cPanel File Manager
This was a big help. Renaming the plugin directory did the trick for me and once I located the problematic plugin all is well. Thanks for the info.
as a beginner wordpress user, your post done great help. Thank you
Thank you so much, your article saved my site ! I faced error 500 during a plugin-upgrade. Just like you told : renamed \plugins, then could connect as wp-admin. I saw my site in an uggly way but worked technically. All plugins seemed’uninstalled’. I renamed my folder to \plugins again. Refreshed my wp-admin page and i could activate one-by-one. You are fantastic, thx for the article!
Hey Olivier,
We are glad you found it helpful. Don’t forget to join us on Twitter for more WordPress tips and tutorials.
Thanks so much for the advice about disabling plugins via FTP. Worked perfectly when I felt a little panicked after an upgrade!
Thank you SO MUCH, this worked perfectly. As soon as I disabled the plugins using your method I was able to login – phew – and reactive each plugin as I needed them. Hadn’t accessed the site backend in a while so it was time to do a cleanup. Again, you saved me so much time. Thank you xx
Good article but sadly did not solve my problem which is this.
I could not change from Text to Visual, it was only on visual, could not insert Media and could not edit the Permalink!
If I rename plugins folder my editor works fine, but it I rename all the plugins individually I still have the problem and so could not find which is causing the problem, maybe two are causing it…. Any advice?
Help…….
Thank you so much! Apparently it was all about a plugin.
Thanks a lot this really helped.
Worked great. Thank you!
Thank you so much for the guide.
It is real useful.
Experienced white screen of death, and fixed it in mins thanks to your super easy to follow instruction!
Thank you for the guide.
Also to deactivate a specific plugin, just rename the specific plugin folder in the c-panel
Thanks for the advice, that got my site back up and gave me access to my admin area. However I’m struggling to reactivate the plugins. I’m seeing no plugins installed and when I try to re-install I get “cannot create directory”
any ideas?
Thanks again,
Ali
Hi Ali,
Please connect to your website using an FTP client or File Manager in cPanel. Go to /wp-content/ folder and make sure it has a plugins folder inside it. If it doesn’t, then you need to create one. After that try installing plugins again.
If you do have plugins folder, then check its file and directory permissions.
Hello, Most of the time, we have the plugin conflict issues, in that case, we deactivate all plugins and enable one by one to check which plugin is the main culprit. I wish there was a plugin which will ease this process, disabling all plugins and and option to enable one by one.
thanks for the tutorial
you’re a life saviors
Thanks a lot.
This is a masterpiece. I have been able to recover my sight after deactivating all my plugins. I got scared when I recovered the site because it was a complete mess. But upon activating all the plugins everything came back to normal. That’s why I will always be a fan of your blog. Thanks
Hi,
I have been a fun since I started my WordPress site this January. I followed your blog today on how to install site maintenance plugin. I was able to install, activate and use it. But unfortunately my laptop shut down unexpectedly afterward and I have realized that I have been logged out of my site. I did everything possible but it is simply not working. I would be grateful if you could help. Thanks.
Hello,
Please see the article above to deactivate all WordPress plugins. This will allow you to login and then you will be able to activate plugins one by one.
Tried this solution but still have the whiteout page. As such cannot even gain access to the site dashboard, to further change or remove anything further.
The solution above needs to be updated with further suggestions what to do, when the above tip doesn’t work. As it is, now I have a site that the public can view – but one that I cannot gain access to for dashboard repairing or anything else.
Hi Jeff,
For more tips see our WordPress troubleshooting guide and our article on most common WordPress errors.
I tried both versions but still get a HTTP Error 500 and am unable to access the backend of my wordpress site.
Thank you so much this tip.
Your tip about renaming the plugins folder has been what saved my nervous system. Wow, thousand of thanks!!!!
Tried activating woocommerce plugin and it broke the site. At first I had the Maintenance screen and now I have a 500 error. I can’t access anything through wp-admin or FTP. Using phpmyAdmin, I cannot locate any tables/columns etc named wp_options following your example.
Great Article. I just troubleshoot a problem which was never in google search using your steps. My all pages were showing a password field and submit button. After deactivating all plugins using your method and reactivating one by one showed that jetpack is corrupted and overriding all other hooks. Great help for me.
Your information was a real life-saver. Thanks for the post and for saving my site.
Thank you so much for this tip
Thank you guys for the help.solve issue via phpmyadmin.
Hi there,
I’m trying to rename the plugins folder via FTP because I can’t login the admin. But I keep getting “access is denied” when I try to rename an active plugin.
Can you help me out?
Thanks!
Thanks. The FTP approach to plugins folder worked perfectly for me!
Thank you for your article, i changed the plugin folder name and was able to login to admin panel again.
Hmm, when I rename the folder back to “plugins,” I’m whitescreened out of admin again. How are people able to reactivate their plugins one by one?
Thankyou!
Saved me from a mini freak out episode. I appreciate your article. Every step worked for me!
I deactivated the plug-ins, now nothing works anymore. When I try to go on my page it says there is no connection to the database. What can I do?
You can now try activating plugins one by one.
This just happened to me too, help! ‘Error establishing a database connection’.
I cut and pasted the text back, but still getting the error message.
ok such an informative article really appreciate it. here is the problem i have reached the white page of doom and i dont ave access to the cpanel is there a turn around to fox this i already know the plugin causing the problem
Fatal error: Maximum execution time of 30 seconds exceeded in /home/webtech1/public_html/wp-includes/post.php on line 4375
FTP Worked … Thank you! The culprit was Discussion Board plugin when I went private setting to work on it the next day on those pages and logged out for the night… lol thanks again!
Deactivating all plugins using FTP works for me. The issue was the Visitors-Traffic-Real-Time-Statistics plugin. Thanks a lot.
Hello,
It doesn’t seem like it was the plugins that caused the issue. I remember I was tweaking some codes in functions.php about the header, and all of sudden I was logged out. Would be greatly appreciated if you can help out!
Maggie
Plugin not tested with wordpress or not compatible with wordpress create white death to site.
Thanks for your post, really helped me to retrieve my web site .
Can use only
https://example.com/wp-login.phpnothttps://example.com/wp-admin/and when I push to entry button it shows me HTTP ERROR 500Thank you so much for this useful tip. It saved me a lot of time when I couldn’t log into my site after repeatedly requesting new passwords. I found which plugin was causing the problem.