WordPress is very easy to install however sometimes beginners end up installing WordPress in a subdirectory instead of the root directory of their website, e.g. http://www.example.com/wordpress/ instead of http://www.example.com. If you accidentally installed WordPress in a subdirectory and now want to move it to the root directory, then you’re in the right place. In this article, we will show you how to get rid of /wordpress/ from your site’s URL.
Note: The method shown in this tutorial works for other subdirectories as well.
If you have not uploaded any content to your site, then you can delete the existing WordPress install and start over by following our complete WordPress installation tutorial. However, if you already have your site up and running, then continue reading.
First you need to log in to your WordPress site’s admin area and go to Settings » General. On the settings page, you will see WordPress Address and Site Address fields and both will have the same URL. You need to change the Site Address option to point to your root domain, e.g. http://www.example.com and leave WordPress Address option as it is. Once you do that, click on Save Changes button to store your settings.
Next, you need to connect to your website using a FTP client. Once you are connected, go to the /wordpress/ directory and download the .htaccess and index.php files to the Desktop on your computer.
It is possible that you may not see .htaccess file in your /wordpress/ directory because it is a hidden file, and your FTP client may not show it. To see the hidden file, you need to enable showing hidden files option in your FTP client. If you are using Filezilla, then you need to click on Server from the menu bar and select ‘Force Showing Hidden Files’ option.
Once you have downloaded both files to your Desktop, you need to open 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 wp-blog-header.php file, which is required to load the front-end of 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 to the root of your domain using FTP. The root folder is the parent folder with the wordpress folder inside it usually called /www/ or /public_html/
That’s all. You can now visit your website on your main domain, and everything will work fine. However, if you need to login 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
We hope that this tutorial helped you get rid of /wordpress/ from your site’s URL. For feedback and questions leave a comment below.
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…?
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.
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?
Hi Rachel,
Yes you can delete it. However, we will still recommend to download it as a backup before deleting it.
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.
Hi Michael,
My folder is called “/wp” instead of “/wordpress”, so probably yours too!
That might be the problem…
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!
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.
Hi Gareth,
Good luck with your new website. Wish we could be more helpful, but it is up to the theme and your website settings. Please see our WordPress troubleshooting guide to figure out whats causing it.
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?
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.
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
Done that, and ‘/wordpress’ from addressbar is gone, but Google still lists it with it in the search. For example:
Hi Marko,
You will need to redirect those users. See our guide on how to setup redirects in WordPress.
Thanks guys i love u <3
This tutorial is a life saviour. Thank you so much.
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
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 ?
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
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.
THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!
I spent hours working on it (failure) and then found your site + explanation.
SUPERB!
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.
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 WordPressDon’t forget to replace secret-sub with the actual subfolder name.
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.
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.
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.
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?
Thank you! This works great!
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?
Thank you man this work after so many hard work. Thanks again keep it up…..will come here for wordpress problem
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,..
Thank you for the great tutorial. Worked perfectly!
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
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 ; )
THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!!!!
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?
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!!
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!
Hi Vernon,
Glad you found it helpful
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I followed the steps but now my website page isn’t working. And I cannot open my wordpress admin page either. Help?
I followed the steps but now my website page isn’t working. And I cannot open my wordpress admin page either. Help?
You say upload the ht access file but you never say how to edit it?
I never leave comments but this post was just so clear and helpful that I have to say THANK YOU!!! :-)))
Hi Alexandra,
Thanks, we are glad you found it helpful. Don’t forget to join us on Twitter for more WordPress tips and tutorials.