Do you need to deactivate all WordPress plugins, but you cannot access the WordPress admin area?
During WordPress troubleshooting, you’ll be often advised to deactivate all plugins and then re-activate them one by one. But what if you cannot access the WordPress admin area to deactivate the plugins?
In this article, we’ll show you how to easily deactivate all WordPress plugins when not able to access the wp-admin area.
Video Tutorial
If you prefer written instructions or want to move at your own pace, then continue reading the instructions below.
Basically, there are two commonly used methods to deactivate plugins without accessing the admin area. We’ll show you both of them and then you can pick one that looks easier.
Method 1. Deactivate All WordPress Plugins Using FTP
In this method, you will need to either use a FTP client, or the file manager option in your WordPress hosting control panel.
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 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 plugins folder and select Rename. Next, 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.
Basically, 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 login to your WordPress admin area.
If you visit the Plugins page inside the WordPress admin area, then you will see notifications for all the plugins that have been deactivated now.
You’ll 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 “plugins.deactivate” folder back to plugins.
Now you can now go back to the Plugins page inside the WordPress admin area and activate one plugin at a time until your site breaks again.
At which point, you will know exactly which plugin caused the issue. You can then delete that plugin 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 sure that you make a complete database backup. This will come in handy if anything goes wrong.
Next, 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 database prefix.
You need to click on the wp_options table. Inside the 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 the 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 the best WordPress backup plugins to keep your WordPress data safe, and our expert pick of the best WordPress plugins for all sites.
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Unfortunately, both of these options did not help (still get error saying site is experiencing technical difficulties) after doing a plugin update (also updated wordpress 5.4 yesterday? could that be the culprit?)
For that error message, you would want to go through our guide below:
https://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/how-to-fix-the-wordpress-white-screen-of-death
My issue got solved easily by following the steps.
Glad our guide was able to help
Thanks a lot for this help, it’s very easy to follow and it works so well
You’re welcome glad our guides are helpful
Thank you so much! it works!
Glad our guide was able to assist
Hello,
I need a help. whenever i tried to access my website I got download option. I tried your all above suggestions but it’s was’nt work for me. I renamed my plugin folder in my cpanel as plugin.deactivate after that I did changes in phpmyadmin in wp-options I edited active plugin folder . still I got download option. what should I do now .
Thanks in advance.
You would want to check with your hosting provider as well as go through the recommendations in our troubleshooting guide here: https://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/beginners-guide-to-troubleshooting-wordpress-errors-step-by-step/
Hello , tried your suggestion but i am unable to alogin into my wordpress admin area.any other suggestion?this is emergency.
If this does not specifically solve your issue, you would want to take a look at our guide here: https://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/beginners-guide-to-troubleshooting-wordpress-errors-step-by-step/
very very very good saved my problem
Glad you found our article helpful
very helpful, thank you, worked like a charm.
Glad our article was helpful
I want to install the Yoast SEO plugin in wordpress. After I do that I need to Deactivate the plugin currently used, correct? I am new to working with WordPress and I need to do this on my own since the guy that made my website abandoned helping me any further! Any Help would be so Much appreciated! Thanks!
You would only need to remove your other plugin if it is an SEO plugin. If it is then you would want to remove it to prevent some common issues.
Omg! You guys saved the day! Thank you so much! After I have spent so much time trying to get my site fixed your easy to follow guide had it fixed in minutes. So thank you!
Glad our guide could help resolve the issue
Hi,
When I go to my website or the wp-admin page, my browser tries to download a file instead of displaying the page.
If disabling your plugins didn’t help, you would want to reach out to your hosting provider and they should be able to assist with that issue
Hi Wpbeginner Support,
How i should i deactivate all plugins in local site ?
You would rename the plugins folder on your computer for that
Thanks a lot – this is a site saver!
Quick question: after the plugin folder is renamed, when go back in the wordpress WP – admin back office plugins list, is it safe to delete such plugin (which folder has been renamed), or will this action be harmful?
Many thanks!
Mig
Using the delete method inside your WordPress site would be the best method for removing that plugin permanently as it will go through the uninstall steps of the plugin.
Thank you so much, you saved my day!
Glad we could help
Which FTP program is for free and it is good to down load without giving the full permissions to take over your computer s full admin.?
Depending on your operating system we list some FTPs we recommend in our article here: https://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/how-to-use-ftp-to-upload-files-to-wordpress-for-beginners/
Hey,
I disabled all plugins, but now all of my Woocommerce is lost.
What do I do ?
When you reenable your plugins the WooCommerce tools should be available again.
Great Stuff! I used the 2-factor authentication plug-in, and could not login to my wordpress dashboard anymore. Your ftp solution solved it 100%.
Glad our guide could help
hi
why i cannot sign in to wordpress admin of my subdomain?
it appears IP Options -ExecCGI
on my site. can u solve my problem?
For that message, you would want to reach out to your hosting provider and they should be able to help you fix it
Hello,
My Word Press site displays normally to visitors but I am getting the WSoD on the WP-Admin login page.
I have tried increasing WordPress Memory to 512Mb and I have tried disabling all plugins. Neither seem to have helped.
I checked and the site was still loading normally but with all the plugins clearly not running. But I get the WSoD when I try to login as admin
I re-activated plugins and everything went back to normal for visitors.
Have you any suggestions what to try next?
For solving the white screen of death you would want to take a look at our guide here: https://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/how-to-fix-the-wordpress-white-screen-of-death/
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.