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How to Get Rid of /wordpress/ From your WordPress Site URL

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Are you trying to remove /wordpress/ from your website’s URL?

Sometimes beginners install WordPress in a subdirectory, and this causes /wordpress/ to appear in their website URL, such as http://example.com/wordpress/.

In this article, we will show you how to get rid of /wordpress/ from your WordPress site URL.

Removing /wordpress/ from your WordPress site url

Note: The method shown in this tutorial also works for other subdirectories.

Why Does My Website Have /wordpress/ in Its URL?

WordPress is quite easy to install, and most WordPress hosting companies offer quick WordPress installers in their hosting control panels.

However, some beginners who install their WordPress website manually may end up accidentally installing it in a subdirectory. Most often, this subdirectory is named ‘wordpress’.

This usually happens because users end up uploading the wordpress folder they find inside the official WordPress.org download.

Let’s take a look at how to easily fix this and get rid of /wordpress/ from your site’s URL. We will cover three methods, and you can use these links to jump to the one you want to use:

Method 1: Simply Start Over With a New WordPress Install

If you have just installed WordPress and there is no content on your website, then you can just go ahead and start over.

Simply delete the current installation and follow the instructions in our WordPress installation tutorial to properly reinstall WordPress.

If you have already added content to your website, then there are two easy ways to remove the /wordpress/ from your site’s URL. We will cover them in Methods 2 and 3.

Method 2: Change Your WordPress Site Address

If you have an established WordPress site, then this method is easier and quicker. The downside of this method is that your media files, such as images, will still use /wordpress/ in their URL.

First, you need to log in to your WordPress admin area and go to Settings » General. You will notice the ‘WordPress Address’ and ‘Site Address’ fields both will have the same URL.

You need to change the ‘Site Address’ option and point it to your root domain, e.g. http://www.example.com and leave the ‘WordPress Address’ option as it is.

Once you do that, click on the ‘Save Changes’ button to store your settings.

Change WordPress site address

Next, you need to connect to your website using an FTP client. Once there, go to the /wordpress/ directory and download the .htaccess and index.php files to your computer.

If you are unable to locate the .htaccess file, then you may need to force your FTP client to show hidden files. If you are using Filezilla, then you need to click on Server from the menu bar and select the ‘Force showing hidden files’ option.

Show hidden files in your FTP client

Once you have downloaded both files to your computer, you need to open the index.php file in a text editor like Notepad. In this file, you will find a line like this:

require( dirname( __FILE__ ) . '/wp-blog-header.php' );

This line loads the wp-blog-header.php file, which is required to load your WordPress site.

What you need to do now is enter the correct location of the file by replacing the existing line with this one:

require( dirname( __FILE__ ) . '/wordpress/wp-blog-header.php' );

Save your changes and upload both index.php and .htaccess files from your desktop computer to the root of your domain using FTP.

The root folder is the parent folder with the ‘wordpress’ folder inside it, and it is usually called /www/ or /public_html/.

Root directory with a separate WordPress folder inside it

That’s all. You can now visit your website using the root domain, and everything will work fine.

http://example.com

However, if you need to log in to your WordPress admin, then you will still need to go to the wp-admin inside the ‘wordpress’ directory like this:

http://www.example.com/wordpress/wp-admin

Method 3: Move WordPress to the Root Directory

This method is more comprehensive and will permanently move your WordPress site from the subdirectory to the root folder of your website.

Step 1: Create a Duplicator Package

First, you need to install and activate the Duplicator plugin on your website. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you need to visit the Duplicator » Settings page and then click on the ‘Create New’ button.

Create new duplicator package

This will launch the Duplicator wizard, which will create an installer package of your complete website. Click on the next button to continue.

Next, the plugin will run some scans. If everything looks good, then you can click on the ‘Build’ button at the bottom.

Build duplicator package

Duplicator will now create a package and prompt you to download it along with the installer script.

Go ahead and download both files to your computer.

Download duplicator package

Step 2: Create a New Database for a Fresh WordPress Install

You can use the existing WordPress database, but it is better to create a new one so that your old database is safe and unchanged. This way, you can revert back to your site without much fuss if something goes wrong.

You need to visit your hosting account’s cPanel dashboard, scroll down to the ‘Databases’ section, and then click on the ‘MySQL Databases’ icon.

Database cPanel

After that, simply provide a name for your database.

Next, you should click the ‘Create Database’ button.

Create database

cPanel will now create a new database for you. After that, you need to scroll down to the ‘MySQL Users’ section.

From here, you need to provide a username and password for your new database user and click on the ‘Create a User’ button.

Create MySQL user

Now, you need to assign database permissions to the new user.

Scroll down to the ‘Add User to Database’ section. Simply select the database user you created from the dropdown menu next to the ‘User’ field, then select the database. Finally, click on the ‘Add’ button.

Add user to database

Your new database is now ready to be used for the fresh WordPress installation.

Step 3: Run the Duplicator Wizard

Now, you need to upload the Duplicator archive package and the installer file you downloaded earlier to the root directory of your website.

This will be the directory containing the/wordpress/ folder.

Upload Duplicator files to the root folder of your website

After you have uploaded both files, open the installer script in a browser window. You will need to enter your site’s root URL and then prefix it with /installer.php.

https://example.com/installer.php

This will open the Duplicator installer wizard.

Duplicator wizard

Check the terms and conditions box and then click on the ‘Next’ button to continue.

Next, it will ask you to provide the database information. Enter the information for the database we created earlier in step 2.

Connect your database

After entering the database information, click on the ‘Next’ button to continue. Duplicator will now unpack your WordPress database backup from the archive into your new database.

Next, it will ask you to update the site URL and path. You don’t need to do anything here, as it will automatically detect the new URL and path. However, if it doesn’t, then you can manually enter the details here.

New site settings

Duplicator will now finish the migration.

You will be able to click on the ‘Admin Login’ button to access your website at the new location.

Migration finished

Step 4: Set Up Subdirectory to Root Folder Redirects

Congratulations, you have successfully moved your WordPress site from the subdirectory to the root folder.

Now, it is time to set up redirects so that your users and search engines can find your website’s new location.

First, you need to connect to your WordPress site using an FTP client and then delete the old /wordpress/ folder.

Delete old wordpress subdirectory

After that, switch to the admin area of your WordPress site. Since you have moved it to the root of your website, your WordPress admin URL will be like this:

https://example.com/wp-admin

Now, you need to install and activate the Redirection plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you need to visit the Tools » Redirection page. The plugin will now show you a setup wizard. Simply click on the ‘Continue Setup’ and then ‘Finish Setup’ buttons.

Redirection setup

Next, you need to switch to the ‘Redirects’ tab and add your new redirect.

First, you need to check the ‘Regex’ box at the corner of the first field.

After that, go to the ‘Source URL’ field and add https://example.com/wordpress/.*Next, go to the ‘Target URL’ field and add https://example.com/$1.

Redirect subdirectory to root folder

Don’t forget to replace ‘example.com’ with your own domain name. Then, make sure you click the ‘Add Redirect’ button to save your changes, and you are done.

Another tool you can use to redirect posts and pages is All in One SEO (AIOSEO). We show you how to redirect visitors using old URLs containing /wordpress/ to your new site location in our beginner’s guide on how to do full site redirects in WordPress.

Plus, you can enable 404 error tracking to catch any broken links so that you don’t lose keyword rankings.

From now on, all users trying to access your website with /wordpress/ in the URL will be automatically redirected to the correct posts with your new root URL.

We hope this article helped you learn how to get rid of /wordpress/ from your WordPress site URL. You may also want to see our guide on how to speed up your WordPress performance or our expert picks of the best WordPress SEO plugins and tools.

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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

140 CommentsLeave a Reply

  1. Syed Balkhi says

    Hey WPBeginner readers,
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  2. Brenda says

    Thank you so much for this tutorial! So helpful.

    I followed step #2 and all the pages on my site work now without the /wordpress in the URL, EXCEPT for the homepage. I updated the Site URL in Settings > General, but for some reason the homepage still redirects from mysite.com to mysite.com/wordpress.

    Any idea why this might be happening? Thanks in advance!

  3. Adrian says

    Not sure if this related, on initial set up should you you use the www dot …. com or just your sitename dot… com

  4. Lilly Walker says

    I followed Method 1: Change WordPress Site Address
    changed the site address with out /mywpfolder
    and downloaded the ht.access and the index file – (they dont match your eg but just added the /mywpfolder etc
    and uploaded the htaccess and the index files back to the root directory
    BUT
    the correct front page came up and then clicked on a link it came up but clicked on a link then and it 404’d.
    my guess is that some pages have urls manually put in but how do I search and replace these?

  5. Alice K says

    Hi!
    First, thank you very much!
    I followed the second method, and now accessing the admin page works without adding “/wordpress” in the URL.
    But when I try to access my website I still have to add “/wordpress” to the URL?!
    Can anyone help? Where have I gone wrong?

    • WPBeginner Support says

      The site is likely active in the old location, you should should still be able to see your login if you go to yourdomain/wp-login.php

      Admin

  6. sginader says

    Thank you! I’m a WP novice so your step by step instructions was perfect. I do have a question – I followed Method 1 – does the redirect add to the site loading time? I ask because my site takes very long to load. Thank you!

    • WPBeginner Support says

      While it adds a small amount to the loading time, it shouldn’t add enough to be noticeable. If this increase in load time was recent then you may want to check with your host to ensure there isn’t something conflicting with the redirect you set up.

      Admin

  7. Rachel says

    I have a question: if I use method 1, do I have to change all url links of my posts and images? My blog are actually inside a folder and I want to make a redirection to the root domain. It’s not clear…

  8. birgit van Munster says

    Hi, I made the change in the index.pho file as directed and moved the two files to the root directory, but I get this error message:

    Parse error: syntax error, unexpected ” );’ (T_ENCAPSED_AND_WHITESPACE) in /data/40/5/47/114/5373603/user/6433782/htdocs/index.php on line 17

    I think line 17 is exactly as described in the instructions, please help!

  9. Bella says

    Thank you so much! The guide I was reading didn’t mention the .htaccess part. This guide fixed the error on my site. Great work!

  10. Bart says

    Hi!
    Great tutorial, and my URL now redirects (woohoo!)
    However when I go the settings tab and change the site title to the one without /wordpress, the site works fine except for the home page, which gives an error.

    What am I missing here…?

  11. TROP ICSU says

    Hi there!

    I have my site hosted on my server. WordPress dir is located in /home/myuser/.
    I tried to follow your steps by copying the updated index.php and .htaccess into same dir level where wordpress dir is. But no success.

    Can you pl guide? Thank you.

  12. Rachel says

    If I have a wordpress instance in a subdirectory and I just want to delete it and not move it, can I just delete the folder, or do I need to go through some kind of un-install procedure so it is removed from the database as well?

  13. Michael Hayman says

    Hey, so i had a go at this, and for some reason i am now faced with an HTTP 500 error.

    Not sure where i went wrong, but i don’t seem to be able to get it back to normal.

    Any ideas would be much appreciated.

    I have tried resetting the index.php back to default as well as the .htacess file with no avail.

    To make matters more difficult i get the same HTTP 500 message when trying to login to the wordpress admin as well.

    • Clarisse says

      Hi Michael,

      My folder is called “/wp” instead of “/wordpress”, so probably yours too!

      That might be the problem…

      • Louise says

        I had the same problem, and my folder was called wp. I just went back to the index.html file and changed it from wordpress to wp and problem solved! Such a helpful article, this was hanging over my head for months and so glad to have it fixed!

  14. Gareth Botha says

    Hi Syed, many thanks for all these, I have been postponing my site for over a year now as it was simply too intimidating. I had however made the fault of installing wordpress to the subdomain /wp and set the entire site up. Just sorted it out with you tut above. I have however come across a new problem, my home/landing page no longer loads my blog posts. How do I resolved this? I also get a redirect error as well.

  15. Yan Xun says

    Hi, I followed these steps and my website is working fine. Only issue is now I can’t seem to load my theme’s UX Builder for my site.

    does this method cause any issue if I am using a theme UX builder?

    • WPBeginner Support says

      Hi Yan Xun,

      Here is what you can try. First create a backup of your website. After that Uninstall the UX builder by visiting the plugins page, now install and activate it again.

      If it comes packaged with your theme, then again create a backup of your website. After that you need to download a fresh copy of your theme. Next, temporarily switch your WordPress site to a default WordPress theme like TwentySeventeen. Delete your old theme and then install it from the zip file you downloaded earlier.

      Admin

  16. Gina says

    Help! I followed your tutorial for removing wordpress. Now I can’t get into the site or admin.
    Getting the following:
    Warning: require(/home/content/09/8001609/html/wordpress/wp-blog-header.php) [function.require]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/content/09/8001609/html/index.php on line 17

    Fatal error: require() [function.require]: Failed opening required ‘/home/content/09/8001609/html/wordpress/wp-blog-header.php’ (include_path=’.:/usr/local/php5/lib/php’) in /home/content/09/8001609/html/index.php on line 17

  17. Marko says

    Done that, and ‘/wordpress’ from addressbar is gone, but Google still lists it with it in the search. For example:

  18. Beth says

    Thanks for your helpful website. I downloaded .htaccess and index.php. My index php says index.php4 The line on it says this: .htaccess disapears when I download it to the desktop. In ftp, they are located in the same folder as the wordpress1 folder is located. It appears to be the root directory. The site has the url with wordpress1 at the end of it. I’m not sure what to do, and don’t want to crash the site!

    Thanks,
    Beth

  19. Lee Graham says

    Can I ask why you download .htaccess only to upload it again?, there is no mention of edting htaccess so why download in the first place ?

    • Brandi says

      I believe he’s asking us to download the one from the /wordpress/ subdirectory and then upload it to the / root (which is up one level). I hope that helps :)

  20. Manpreet Kaur says

    HI,

    Thankyou so much for these helpful tutorials my one problem is solved but there is one another. When I search on google and type my website address it shows index of link instead of my website name. When I click on that link it opens my website. Can anyone help me to display my website URL on google instead of index of URL.

  21. Ariadne1985 says

    THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!

    I spent hours working on it (failure) and then found your site + explanation.

    SUPERB!

  22. Filip Kevely says

    1. I have moved my example.com WP installation into subfolder (let’s call it “secret-sub”).

    2. Typing example.com/wp-login.php automatically re-directs me to example.com/secret-sub/wp-login.php :((

    ((Note: Visiting no other part of my web page shows this subfolder name as part of URL address; visitors see only example.com everywhere.))

    Is this normal behaviour?

    And if so – what’s actually the point of having your WP installation in “secret” subfolder – when basic /wp-login.php and /wp-admin brute attack re-directs to URL showing the “secret subfolder” name??

    Any clear explanation will be very much appreciated. Thx.

    • WPBeginner Support says

      Hi Filip Kevely,

      When you install another WordPress instance in a sub-folder it creates a conflict for WordPress permalinks. To fix that you need to add this code to your sub-folder site’s .htaccess file:

      # BEGIN WordPress
      <IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
      RewriteEngine On
      RewriteBase /secret-sub/
      RewriteRule ^index\.php$ – [L]
      RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
      RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
      RewriteRule . /secret-sub/index.php [L]
      </IfModule>
      # END WordPress
      

      Don’t forget to replace secret-sub with the actual subfolder name.

      Admin

  23. Charlotte Tomic says

    How do you get rid of FEATURED CONTENT on your blog? I eliminated footers without a problem, but can’t get rid of featured content showing up on the blog front page.

  24. Jade says

    Hi there, I am pulling my hair out…….I dont have the wordpress address url or the Site Address url under settings general! I have one site with nothing on it with my web address and then another site which I have fixed up with the same name but then wordpress.com at the end, any help would be greatly appreciated.

  25. Arif says

    I have followed given the instruction but I am facing problem my website is not open correct and wp login penal is not coming please help me quickly.

  26. Bright Bernard says

    Hello,

    I successfully got rid of /wordpress from site URL following the instructions in the tutorial but once i installed yoast for seo , google shows the pages with /worpress in its search results.how can we remove that from google search results also?

  27. Kala says

    Please help, I thought I had followed the steps correctly but am receiving this error when I type in my web domain:

    Fatal error: require() [function.require]: Failed opening required ‘/home/melanieh/public_html/wordpress/wp-blog-header.php’ (include_path=’.:/usr/lib/php:/usr/local/lib/php’) in /home/melanieh/public_html/index.php on line 17

    What did I do wrong?

  28. Robel says

    Thank you man this work after so many hard work. Thanks again keep it up…..will come here for wordpress problem

  29. Julius Decada says

    problem with 404, I resolve it in a longest manner, First I just open the post and click update, it works,.. although if you got a thousand post then you grow beard before you finish everything,..

    second solution

    another solution, although i never test this type of solutions in my active sites,
    1. first thing first back-up your wordpress website,
    2. when back-up is done, got to tools and click export, it will create xml file
    3. delete all post,..
    4. Import the xml file that you exported,. and and everythng go smoothly,..

  30. rio says

    everything worked except my root domain name.

    when I go to mydomain.com I get a 500 error, but all my links mydomain.com/contact mydomain.com/links look fie

    • Rodrigo Henriques says

      Hi,

      have you checked if you REALLY have a “yourdomain/wordpress” directory?
      Or a “yourdomain/wp” directory!

      Because if you do you have to change the index.php editing accordingly ; )

      Hope that helps,, it worked for me ; )

      • omkar says

        how to check whether i have a /wordpress or a /wp directory? and what following changes should i make then in the index.php file?

      • Tammie Radikopf says

        Thank you for this reply!! Your answer is what helped me solve my problem. I didn’t realize you couldn’t just use ‘wordpress’ as the tutorial said but needed to use the exact subdirectory name. it worked. Thanks!!

  31. Vernon Harris says

    I was moving our word press site from the root folder to a sub folder and everything almost worked. The only exception was that I couldn’t find a way to remove the sub-folder from the domain URL. This site had the easiest instructions and was easy to follow. It worked perfectly the 1st time. Thank You!

  32. Fadiah Karim says

    I followed the steps but now my website page isn’t working. And I cannot open my wordpress admin page either. Help?

  33. Alexandra says

    I never leave comments but this post was just so clear and helpful that I have to say THANK YOU!!! :-)))

  34. JO says

    Thank you so much for this – it worked and as a total WP novice I can’t believe I did it myself! You’re awesome

  35. Sandip says

    Thanks so much for this. I did install WP into a subdirectory and then spent a week remaking the site so that it was installed in the root directory :( At least now I know better after reading your tutorial.

  36. Temitope says

    Hello, Thanks for the tutorial, I’m pretty new to WordPress, I did a one click install and it was a multisite installation too. The website URL and domain URL fields are’nt available under settings. Please how do I go about this on a multisite???

  37. Tobi says

    Hi, great article, the first one I found which explains this topic in a good matter.
    I have a similar problem, but a little bit more tricky. I do not know how it happened, but certainly I have done something strange at the WP installation. If I check my homepage it is actually in another extra worpress folder, that means I have WP in another WP folder, so my homepage looks like this: “www.example.com/wordpress/wordpress”. in the filemanager in the frp client i can see in the public_html two folders of wordpress. I did not move yet the wordpress folder with the content one level up and actually eliminate the other folder, because I am worried that I will mass it up.
    Has anybody have an idea what would be the best solution? So I actually get the homepage opened under: “www.example.com” and not “www.example.com/wordpress/wordpress”?

    thanks for any good hint/solution.

  38. Brandi says

    Thank you so much for this!! I did everything you said to do, and almost everything works. There’s just one page that stopped working and is returning a 404 error page. Can you help? Thanks!

  39. Krista Hagman says

    I tried, but the space that says Website Address and site address does not exist in my General area in Settings.
    Is there another way to do it?

  40. Carolina says

    I see that several have the same problem as me, but I can not see any response to the issue.

    That is that everything seems to work fine except for:
    the home-page which is still directing to site.com/wordpress and therefore shows a 404 page.
    I did try to delete the htaccess file from the root directory and update the url-structure. it created a new htaccess file but the problem still is the same..

    Would really appreciate your response to this!
    Thank you for a great post.

    • may says

      My problem was from menu

      Try to check your URL from WP-admin —>>> appearance —>>> menu —>>> home —>>> custom link URL

  41. Anna Acenas says

    hello
    how can i remove my blog Im not a the owner of a site can i still remove my blog even im not the owner.please help me

  42. John says

    I have a question, is there something like this for Joomla? Because I couldn’t find anything on the internet.

  43. Amardeep gupta says

    Hello,
    First of all thanks for this article. But there is one problem stand for me.
    As I followed your step as you mention so i got Index.php but didn’t find .htaccess file.
    But i did same mean
    change ‘/wp-blog-header.php’ to ‘/wordpress/wp-blog-header.php’
    but my home page only show without /wordpress and rest of pages will show 404- error.
    please help me to slove this problem.

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