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WPBeginner» Blog» WordPress Plugins» How to Put Your WordPress Site in Maintenance Mode

How to Put Your WordPress Site in Maintenance Mode

Last updated on October 8th, 2018 by Editorial Staff
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How to Put Your WordPress Site in Maintenance Mode

Do you want to put your WordPress site in maintenance mode? The maintenance mode allows you to display a user-friendly notice to your users instead of a broken site during website maintenance. In this article, we will show you how to easily put your WordPress site in maintenance mode.

putting your WordPress site in maintenance mode

Why and When You Need to Put WordPress in Maintenance Mode

Normally, you can work on customizing your WordPress website without having to put it in maintenance mode. You can perform minor tweaks, publish new content, update themes and plugins without any downtime.

However, sometimes you may need to work on your website for a longer period. Like when you are manually setting up a new theme or configuring a new plugin that changes the behavior of your website. During this time your website may appear broken to your users for a period of time.

If your website has a lot of traffic, then you don’t want your users to see a broken website because it creates a bad user experience and give them a poor impression of your brand.

Putting your WordPress site in maintenance mode allows you to remedy that with a user-friendly notification, alternative links to visit, and provide a time frame for when the maintenance will be done. This creates a better user experience and a positive brand image among your users.

If you are working on a new website, then you can use the same concept to put your website in an under construction mode. This will allow you to build anticipation among your users and create hype for your upcoming website.

Having that said, let’s take a look at how to easily put your WordPress site in maintenance or under-construction mode.

We will show you two different plugins to create coming soon or maintenance mode pages. You can choose the one that works best for you.

Video Tutorial

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If you don’t want to watch the video tutorial, then you can continue reading the text version below:

1. Setup Maintenance Mode Using WP Maintenance Mode Plugin

First thing you need to do is install and activate the WP Maintenance Mode plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you need to go to Settings » WP Maintenance Mode to configure the plugin settings.

WP Maintenance Mode

The plugin’s setting screen is divided into five tabs. By default, you will see the General options tab.

The first option under General is Status, which is set to Deactivated by default. In order to put your WordPress site into maintenance mode, you need to set it to ‘Activated’.

If you want search engines to be able to see your website while it is in maintenance mode, then you need to set ‘Bypass for Search Bots’ option to Yes. If you have an established website, then we recommend setting this to Yes.

WP Maintenance Mode allows you, the administrator, to have full access to your website during the maintenance mode. This means that you can see the working website and login to your WordPress dashboard.

You can specify which user roles should be allowed to access the front and backend of the website while it is in maintenance mode. By default, it is set to Administrator only.

Other options on the page are self-explanatory. Once you are satisfied with the settings, you need to click on the Save settings button to store your changes.

Creating Your Own Splash Page for Maintenance Mode

WP Maintenance Mode allows you to create beautiful landing pages to display during maintenance mode. To create your splash page, simply click on the Design tab on the plugin’s settings page.

Design your maintenance page

First, you need to provide a title, heading, and content to display on your maintenance page. If you are creating a coming soon page, then you can change the content accordingly.

Next, you need to select the text color and background type. You can choose from the background color, choose a pre-defined image, or upload your own background image.

Once you are done with the settings, don’t forget to click on the save changes button to store your settings.

Adding Countdown and Newsletter Signup on WordPress Maintenance Page

If you are putting WordPress in coming soon mode or just want to let users know when your site will be up, then you can use a countdown timer module that’s included with the plugin.

You can set it up by going to the Modules tab on the plugin’s settings page. From here you can select a start date and enter the remaining time.

Adding a countdown timer

You can also allow users to subscribe and be notified when your website is back online. These users will be notified via the plugin, and they will not be subscribed to your email marketing list.

Subscribe to be notified

You want to make sure that your WordPress site is able to send emails. For more details, see our guide on how to fix WordPress not sending email issue to test and fix WordPress emails.

Next, you can also add links to your social media profiles in the coming soon mode or maintenance mode page. Simply enter your social media profile URLs, and the plugin will automatically display the social buttons.

Add social media buttons

Optionally, you can also enable Google Analytics and add your tracking ID in the plugin settings.

Don’t forget to click on the save settings button to store your changes.

WP Maintenance mode also allows you to set up a pre-programed live chat bot which includes an interactive conversational help box. You can use this feature to politely ask users if they would like to subscribe.

Manage bot settings

If you enable the bot, then it will hide the maintenance mode content you had set in the General settings page. This is how the chatbot would look on your website.

Chatbot preview

If you are collecting user data through the signup forms on your maintenance mode or coming soon mode page, then you would want to make it GDPR compliant.

You can do this by switching to the GDPR tab on the plugin’s settings page. From here you can enable the privacy module and select your privacy policy page.

GDPR settings

You can now visit your website in a new browser window with the incognito mode, and you will be greeted with your maintenance mode or coming soon page.

Preview of the maintenance mode page

2. Setup Maintenance Mode using SeedProd Plugin

SeedProd is a premium WordPress plugin that comes with beautiful designs and guaranteed support.

The first thing you need to do is install and activate the SeedProd plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you need to visit you need to visit Settings » Coming Soon Pro page to setup coming soon or maintenance mode page.

Enable maintenance of coming soon mode

First, you need to select the status. You can select ‘Enable Coming Soon Mode’ or ‘Enable Maintenance Mode’. You can also select redirect mode which allows you to simply redirect your users to some other website.

After choosing maintenance or coming soon mode, click on the ‘Save all changes’ button.

Next, you need to click on ‘Edit Coming Soon/Maintenance Page’ button. This will open the SeedProd theme customizer.

Select a theme

You will now see a list of beautiful ready-made themes that you can use for your maintenance or coming soon page. Click to select a theme and SeedProd will show customization options for the theme.

Theme options

From here you can easily add your own logo, background, change content, add email subscription form, social sharing buttons, countdown timer, progress bar, etc.

SeedProd also supports all popular email marketing services. You can simply select your email service provider and setup a signup form by following on-screen instructions.

Email sign up form

Once you are satisfied with the changes, don’t forget to click on the save button to store your changes. You can now visit your website in an incognito mode to preview your maintenance mode page in action.

SeedProd preview

For more detailed instructions, see our article on how to create coming soon pages in WordPress with SeedProd.

We hope this article helped you learn how to easily put your WordPress site in maintenance mode. You may also want to see these examples of maintenance page ideas that you can use on your website.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

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51 Comments

Leave a Reply
  1. Keith says:
    Jan 7, 2019 at 7:26 pm

    It worked on mobile but not on desktop. I’ve tried incognito mode on several browsers and computers… Any suggestions?

    Reply
    • WPBeginner Support says:
      Jan 7, 2019 at 11:47 pm

      Hey Keith,

      Please see your settings to make sure that you are not just using it on mobile browsers.

      Reply
  2. Willman says:
    Sep 24, 2018 at 10:42 am

    I use WP Maintenance Mode plugin.
    My URL now shows the maintenance page, but only when I am not logged in. It shows the normal blog when I am logged in. What happens?

    Reply
    • WPBeginner Support says:
      Sep 24, 2018 at 6:53 pm

      Hello,

      That’s expected behavior. When you are logged in you can see your blog so that you can work on it.

      Reply
  3. Tony says:
    Sep 5, 2018 at 3:58 pm

    A couple of quick questions please – Where exactly does the information collected in the Manage Bot tab get stored. How do I see the information collected by the BOT?

    Thanks

    Tony

    Reply
  4. joyce says:
    Mar 12, 2018 at 12:45 pm

    I can’t get it to work.

    I have followed instructions perfectly.

    What am I doing wrong? Nothing fancy, just deactivate while I build.

    Thanks.
    Joyce

    Reply
    • joyce says:
      Mar 12, 2018 at 12:48 pm

      I figured it out. I was still logged in but the timer was going and I did not set up a timer.

      Reply
  5. Aurora says:
    Feb 1, 2018 at 5:57 am

    Well, you missed out a tiny but important piece of information, that to even install the WP Maintenance Plugin, you need to have a business plan with WP. I was misled to try this article and even registered for your free videos and plugins when I don’t even have a business plan.

    Reply
    • WPBeginner Support says:
      Feb 1, 2018 at 5:50 pm

      Hi Aurora,

      Please see our guide on the difference between self hosted WordPress.org vs free WordPress.com blog.

      Reply
  6. Manoj Aryal says:
    Jan 24, 2018 at 10:38 pm

    I have activated the maintenance mode through the dashboard in WordPress but the website is still online and everything is shown ?

    I used rookie theme. please tell me how can the solve?

    Reply
    • Er Abhishek Choudhary says:
      Jun 21, 2018 at 5:38 am

      First logout from wp then it works or use another web browser if you don’t want to logout.

      Reply
  7. Tabitha says:
    Nov 17, 2017 at 5:26 pm

    Hi! I was really excited to find this plug in to display a coming soon page while I build my site. I followed the directions. Changed all the settings as described BUT now my site will not load at all. I can work on it from the back end no problem from my dashboard but when I have others go to see how the splash page looks, it wont load. Please help!

    Reply
  8. Jenna says:
    Aug 23, 2017 at 1:57 pm

    Hello – how long after saving it as “activated” will it take for the front end to display the message? I am still able to see and navigate around the website, even though I have the maintenance mode set to active.

    Reply
    • WPBeginner Support says:
      Aug 23, 2017 at 7:38 pm

      Hi Jehna,

      Try logging out of your website or open it in incognito mode.

      Reply
      • Tabitha says:
        Nov 17, 2017 at 7:31 pm

        I read that here and tried that. After a solid 2 minutes of nothing happening, I tried with a different browser and still nothing. Thing is its not just my computer that it won’t open on. My phone (not logged in), my room mates computer, and other friends too. Some get a 504 error code. Some get ‘safari could’t open bc server stopped responding’ type message. :( Any other suggestions?

        Reply
  9. Bella says:
    Jul 17, 2017 at 4:19 pm

    Hi there,

    I was wondering whether its only administrator roles that can edit the site while in maintenance mode?

    I am running Dokan and WooCommerce and would like my users (vendors) to be able to upload products even when in maintenance mode? is this possoble or do i have to give them administrator access?

    best regards,

    Christabel

    Reply
    • WPBeginner Support says:
      Jul 17, 2017 at 4:39 pm

      Hi Bella,

      Ideally you would only allow administrators to be able to access admin area during the maintenance mode. However, you can change that if you need.

      Reply
  10. Paul says:
    Jul 4, 2017 at 5:30 pm

    I’m disappointed by the content. It’s a great article about a plugin, but I found it by searching for “wordpress enable maintenance mode”. I’m about to upgrade a site to version 4.8, manually. My first step will be to disable all of the plugins — including WP_Maintenance_mode. Your solution won’t work for me.

    It would have been nice if you’d at least included a link to how to put a site into maintenance mode without a plugin.

    Reply
  11. Pranilesh says:
    Jun 28, 2017 at 8:06 am

    Hi, I recently started a blog and installed wp through the host service now when I click to visit my site it shows site under construction. Can you help Me please asap

    Reply
  12. Toon says:
    Jun 23, 2017 at 7:32 am

    A very nice plugin indeed.
    But be aware!
    Suppose you put your site in Maintenance Mode with this plugin and you are going to update WordPress.
    At some point in the update process you will still get the standard WordPress ‘Maintenance message (‘Briefly unavailable for scheduled maintenance. Check back in a minute.’). After WordPress is done updating, the Maintenance Mode page from the plugin returns.
    I think that this is the case with most of these Maintenance plugins.

    Reply
    • Honey says:
      Sep 19, 2017 at 11:21 pm

      Hi Toon,

      I was wondering, how do you go around this then? I’m about to use a maintenance plugin but I’m afraid I’d break my site.

      Best,
      Honey

      Reply
  13. Ben says:
    Jun 19, 2017 at 11:07 am

    Hello, WPBeginner
    Please, is it recommended to delete the plugin after the plugin’s purpose has been fulfilled?
    Thanks

    Reply
    • WPBeginner Support says:
      Jun 20, 2017 at 7:48 pm

      Hi Ben,

      Yes. You should deactivate and delete the plugins that you don’t intend to use anytime soon.

      Reply
  14. Xyronch says:
    Apr 4, 2017 at 2:01 am

    The maintenance not working in https … it’s only in http they can access using https..

    Reply
  15. Nicole says:
    Mar 8, 2017 at 8:37 pm

    Hi there. Looking for some help, please. I put my site into maintenance mode using these instructions, but now I can’t get out of it. I don’t have a direct WordPress log in, I made the site in WordPress through the host site. And now I can’t edit the site at all.

    Any help would be greatly appreciated!

    Thank you
    Nicole

    Reply
    • WPBeginner Support says:
      Mar 12, 2017 at 4:31 pm

      Hi Nicole,

      You can go to the plugins page and deactivate the WP Maintenance Mode plugin.

      Reply
  16. philippe says:
    Jan 27, 2017 at 4:36 am

    sorry i figured it out my bad

    Reply
  17. philippe says:
    Jan 27, 2017 at 4:15 am

    hi i put my page in mantic mode but now i can not access it at all i do not even have the blue tool bar to select options please help i click on my web site and all it does is take me to the mainanace page

    Reply
  18. Abhishek Sharma says:
    Jan 10, 2017 at 8:21 pm

    Looks like a nice plugin, but it seems problem on this where is go You subscribed Emails. how can i check this email ids.

    Reply
  19. Konstantinos says:
    Nov 14, 2016 at 9:29 am

    Very nice article once again…

    I have one question though.
    I installed the plugin. I configured it as I wanted but I can’t find something to preview my “Under Construction” Page.

    thank you in advance.

    Reply
  20. Kay says:
    Aug 3, 2016 at 6:43 pm

    Super easy to set up, love it. However, it looks great on desktop but a mess on mobile. It supposed to be mobile responsive??? Am I missing something? Thanks

    Reply
  21. deb says:
    Jun 28, 2016 at 9:53 pm

    Just wondering, will it be possible to change background each time the site refreshes ?

    Reply
  22. Sanjay Goswami says:
    Feb 9, 2016 at 11:43 pm

    Is there any way to put WordPress site in maintenance mode through wp-config file?

    Reply
  23. Nicola says:
    Jan 30, 2016 at 5:36 pm

    Hi,

    Im stuck in maintenance mode and I can’t seem to access my site and work in the background. I obviously haven’t set a switch or checked a button. could you help me access my site?

    Regards,

    Nicola

    Reply
  24. Sarah says:
    Nov 26, 2015 at 8:39 pm

    Hello I’m wondering if my site is not live, how is it possible to receive comments?

    Reply
  25. asraf says:
    Oct 3, 2015 at 11:56 am

    yeah well cleared man thank you so much,…..

    Reply
  26. Eikeen says:
    Sep 16, 2015 at 8:40 pm

    I follow your instruction and the maintenance sign did not show up on my site and my site is still active. Is there another way that I can bring my site down

    Reply
    • Gena says:
      Nov 8, 2015 at 3:05 pm

      I have the same problem.
      I have tried 4 different maintenance mode plugins and I can’t get any of them to work. My site is still active. Help

      Reply
  27. ANita says:
    May 26, 2015 at 9:09 am

    Hi,

    Very clearly written post – I wish I had read it before activating the plugin. I don’t seem to be able to log back into my account. I just have this blank screen with the ‘under maintenance’ message and nothing else. Any change you could advise me on how to get back into my account? Thanks a million! Anita

    Reply
    • WPBeginner Support says:
      May 27, 2015 at 12:35 pm

      Please see How to fix briefly unavailable for scheduled maintenance error

      Reply
  28. Aksam Zarook says:
    Mar 19, 2015 at 8:54 am

    Thanks once again for a great resource wpbignner.

    Your site has helped me out many times by giving advice on the best way to solve wp problems. I’m a wordpress designer and developer and many times I have had to find quick solutions to problems at short notices from customers. Today was one of them. There are many wp plugins new and old for the same function and you get confused what to select. In times like that I always first do a google search for wpbeginner articles. :)

    Reply
  29. adeem jan says:
    Nov 20, 2014 at 9:05 am

    Superb post buddy, i never know about it that we can set our blog on maintenance mode, this way i can save my traffic who came from search engine or referral for 1st time on my blog.
    Will surely try this and will let you know about outcomes.

    Reply
  30. WPBeginner Staff says:
    Sep 8, 2014 at 4:42 pm

    No it will put your site in maintenance mode for as long as you want. You will have to turn it off when you want to resume normal operation.

    Reply
  31. AlbertVR says:
    Sep 8, 2014 at 3:49 pm

    Seems like u just screwed up with this plugin! all the functionality off the old plugin is deleted

    Reply
  32. Hitesh Parekh says:
    Sep 8, 2014 at 2:05 am

    This is great but it is better to have a separate cloned server like a staging server where you can put all your tests and not to worry about putting your website offline

    Reply
    • Ikomrad says:
      Oct 16, 2016 at 10:25 pm

      What if your live site it broken? The bad code will be copied to your clone site a well

      Reply
  33. peme says:
    Sep 7, 2014 at 4:52 am

    Will it automatically be showm eg. when upgrading plugins or will that still tricker the normal ‘maintenance mode’ message?

    Reply
  34. WPBeginner Staff says:
    Sep 4, 2014 at 8:12 pm

    It was probably temporary down, please try again.

    Reply
  35. WPBeginner Staff says:
    Sep 4, 2014 at 8:11 pm

    Its working fine for us.

    Reply
  36. Mick Levin says:
    Sep 4, 2014 at 12:28 pm

    The link to the plugin is broken, is that right?

    Reply
  37. mwgaines says:
    Sep 4, 2014 at 11:45 am

    Looks like a nice plugin, but it seems to be no longer available.

    Reply

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