Have you ever visited a popular site only to land on a page that says “Our site is going through Maintenance”? Popular sites use maintenance mode page to improve user experience because no one likes to visit a broken site. On the other hand, new websites use maintenance mode as a coming soon page. In this article, we will show you how to put your WordPress site in maintenance mode for visitors while allowing administrators (you) to access the admin area and the full website.
First thing you need to do is install and activate WP Maintenance Mode plugin. Upon activation, you need to go to Settings » WP Maintenance Mode to configure the plugin.
The plugin’s settings screen is divided into three tabs. By default you will see the General options tab.
The first option under General is Status, which is set to Deactivated. 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 are unsure about this option, then we would recommend you to skip it.
WP Maintenance Mode allows you to have full access of your website during the maintenance mode. This means you can see the working website and login to your WordPress dashboard. However, you need to choose the user role allowed to access front and backend. 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 splash pages to display during maintenance mode. To create your splash page, simply click on the Design tab on the plugin’s settings page.
First you need to provide a title, heading and content to display on your maintenance page. You can also choose colors for the displayed text.
The next part is to choose a background for your maintenance mode page. WP Maintenance Mode provides you three choices. You can choose a background color, upload an image to be used as background, or choose from some predefined images. Here are some examples of beautiful maintenance page design.
After choosing your background, click on the save settings button to store your settings.
Adding Countdown and Newsletter Signup on Maintenance Page
If you are creating a coming soon page or just want to let users know when your site will be up, then you can use countdown timer module packed with the plugin. Simply go to the Modules tab on the plugin’s settings screen.
Set ‘Show Countdown’ to Yes and then choose a start date and remaining days. You can also choose a color for the timer.
WP Maintenance Mode also allows you to display signup form where users can provide their email address to receive updates. You can then export the list of your subscribers and import it into your email list.
You can also show icons to your social networks. Simply select Yes next to Social Networks option and then provide URLs to your social media profiles.
The last option on the modules tab is to display contact information. You can enable this option and then provide an email address where users can reach you.
Click on the save settings button, before previewing your website.
We hope this article helped you put your WordPress site into maintenance mode without affecting your access to the admin area or the front end.
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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
I figured it out. I was still logged in but the timer was going and I did not set up a timer.
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.
Hi Aurora,
Please see our guide on the difference between self hosted WordPress.org vs free WordPress.com blog.
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?
First logout from wp then it works or use another web browser if you don’t want to logout.
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!
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.
Hi Jehna,
Try logging out of your website or open it in incognito mode.
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?
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
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.
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.
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
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.
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
Hello, WPBeginner
Please, is it recommended to delete the plugin after the plugin’s purpose has been fulfilled?
Thanks
Hi Ben,
Yes. You should deactivate and delete the plugins that you don’t intend to use anytime soon.
The maintenance not working in https … it’s only in http they can access using https..
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
Hi Nicole,
You can go to the plugins page and deactivate the WP Maintenance Mode plugin.
sorry i figured it out my bad
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
Looks like a nice plugin, but it seems problem on this where is go You subscribed Emails. how can i check this email ids.
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.
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
Just wondering, will it be possible to change background each time the site refreshes ?
Is there any way to put WordPress site in maintenance mode through wp-config file?
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
Hello I’m wondering if my site is not live, how is it possible to receive comments?
yeah well cleared man thank you so much,…..
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
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
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
Please see How to fix briefly unavailable for scheduled maintenance error
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.
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.
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.
Seems like u just screwed up with this plugin! all the functionality off the old plugin is deleted
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
What if your live site it broken? The bad code will be copied to your clone site a well
Will it automatically be showm eg. when upgrading plugins or will that still tricker the normal ‘maintenance mode’ message?
It was probably temporary down, please try again.
Its working fine for us.
The link to the plugin is broken, is that right?
Looks like a nice plugin, but it seems to be no longer available.