Are you trying to deactivate all WordPress plugins but can’t get into the WordPress admin area?
When troubleshooting WordPress, it’s common to be told to deactivate all plugins and then reactivate them one by one. What if you can’t get into the WordPress admin area to disable the plugins?
When you can’t access the wp-admin area, we’ll show you how to quickly deactivate all WordPress plugins.
Basically, there are two ways to deactivate plugins without having to go into the admin area. We’ll show you both of them, and you can choose which one appears to be easier.
Method 1: Using FTP, deactivate all WordPress plugins
You’ll need to use an FTP client or the file manager option in your WordPress hosting control panel for this method.
To begin, use an FTP client or cPanel’s File Manager to connect to your website. You must go to the /wp-content/ folder once you’ve connected.
You’ll find a plugins folder inside the wp-content folder. This is where WordPress keeps track of all the plugins you’ve installed on your site.
To rename the plugins folder, right-click it and select Rename. After that, change the name of the plugins folder to whatever you want. We’ll call this “plugins.deactivate” in our example.
All of your plugins will be deactivated as a result of this action.
To load the plugin files, WordPress looks for a folder called plugins. When it can’t find the folder, it disables the database’s active plugins automatically.
When you’re locked out of your admin area, this method is usually used. If the problem was caused by your plugins, you should now be able to access your WordPress admin area.
You’ll see notifications for all the plugins that have been deactivated now if you go to the Plugins page in the WordPress admin area.
You’ll notice that all of your plugins have vanished as well. Don’t worry, they’re all safe and simple to reinstall.
Return to your FTP client and navigate to the /wp-content/ folder. You must now rename the “plugins.deactivate” folder to plugins.
You can now return to the WordPress admin area’s Plugins page and activate one plugin at a time until your site breaks again.
At that point, you’ll know which plugin caused the problem. You can then use FTP to remove the plugin from your site or contact the plugin author for assistance.
Method 2: Using phpMyAdmin, disable all plugins.
In our opinion, the FTP method is the most convenient, but phpMyAdmin can also be used to disable all WordPress plugins.
Important: Please ensure that you have a complete database backup before proceeding. If something goes wrong, this will come in handy.
The next step is to log into your web hosting dashboard. We’ll show you a cPanel dashboard in this example. The dashboard of your hosting account may differ.
You must select the phpMyAdmin icon from the ‘Databases’ section.
This will open phpMyAdmin in a separate tab in your browser. If it isn’t already selected, you’ll need to choose your WordPress database. After that, you’ll be able to see the tables in the WordPress database.
As you can see, the wp_ prefix appears before the table name in the database. It’s possible that your tables have a different database prefix.
You must select the wp options table. There are rows of different options in the wp options table. You must first locate the option ‘active plugins’ and then click the ‘Edit’ link next to it.
Change the option value field to a:0: on the next screen, and then click the Go button to save your changes.
That’s it; using phpMyAdmin, you’ve successfully deactivated all WordPress plugins. If a plugin was preventing you from logging into the WordPress admin area, you should now be able to do so.
We hope that this article has assisted you in deactivating all WordPress plugins. To keep your WordPress data safe, check out our list of the best WordPress backup plugins, as well as our expert pick of the best WordPress plugins for all sites.
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