WordPress plugins play a vital role in extending or depreciating the functionality and features of your website. However, there are instances when a plugin may cause conflicts or errors, resulting in a need to deactivate it.
While deactivating plugins from the WordPress admin dashboard is the most common method, there might be situations during WordPress eros where you can’t access your dashboard due to plugin-related issues. In such cases, the hosting panel (FTP) offers an alternative solution.
In this article, we will guide you through the process of deactivating WordPress plugins directly from your hosting panel, ensuring a smooth and hassle-free experience.
Why deactivate plugins from hosting panel?
Deactivating plugins from hosting panel is an alternative method of deactivating plugins. In regular cases we can deactivate plugins from the WordPress dashboard itself.
However, during errors like ‘This site is experiencing technical difficulties‘, ‘WordPress white screen of death‘, ‘500 internal server error‘, ‘WordPress posts returning to 404 error‘, etc you may be blocked out of WordPress login page and WordPress dashboard.
And chances might be there, that these error have occurred due to plugin conflicts. So, you need to deactivate them from the hosting panel.
Step-by-Step Guide to Deactivate WordPress Plugins from Your Hosting Panel:
1. Login to Your Hosting Panel
Start by logging in to your hosting panel. The method for accessing your hosting panel may vary depending on your hosting provider and the type of hosting panel. Typically, you can log in by visiting your hosting provider’s website and entering your login credentials.
Once you’re logged into your hosting panel, locate the “File Manager” or “FTP Access” option. These tools allow you to manage the files and folders associated with your website.
2. Open the WordPress Installation Directory
Navigate to the root directory of your WordPress installation from the file manager. This is typically named “public_html” or may be the name of your website.
3. Locate the “wp-content” Folder
Within the WordPress installation directory, find the “wp-content” folder and open it.
4. Open the “plugins” Folder
Inside the “wp-content” folder, locate and open the “plugins” folder. This folder contains all the installed plugins on your WordPress site.
5. Deactivating the plugin(s)
Deactivating plugins from the hosting panel is easy. It just includes two simple steps.
- Rename the particular plugin folder to deactivate that particular plugin only. Rename the whole Plugins folder to deactivate all installed plugins at once. (Renaming plugins folder means WordPress won’t be able to communicate with the plugins files and it will think that the plugin(s) have not been installed)
- Rename back to the original name, this will deactivate the plugin(s).
A. Deactivating Individual Plugin
To deactivate a plugin, simply open its folder within the “plugins” directory. The folder name should match the plugin’s name. Right-click on the folder and select the “Rename” option.
To deactivate the plugin, add any character or word at the beginning or end of the folder name. This action effectively disables the plugin.
For example: If I want to deactivate UpDraftPlus Plugin I will simply rename the plugin folder from updraftplus to updraftplus.deactivate.
B. Deactivating all WordPress plugins at once
In case you want to deactivate all the WordPress plugins at once; instead of renaming the particular plugin folder you need to rename the root Plugins folder. You can rename the Plugins folder to something like Plugins.deactivate.
After renaming the folder, WordPress won’t be able to access the particular or any of the installed plugins. This means plugins won’t be shown in your WordPress dashboard. After you have renamed the folder, you need to rename back to its original stage to successfully deactivate the plugin and show it in the WordPress dashboard..
6. Verify Plugin Deactivation
After renaming the plugin folder, go to your WordPress website and check if the plugin has been successfully deactivated. Visit the affected pages or perform the actions that were previously causing issues to confirm that the plugin is no longer causing conflicts.
Conclusion
In this tutorial we learnt to deactivate WordPress plugins from your hosting panel. This can be useful when you are blocked out of your WordPress dashboard due to theme or plugin conflicts or erros.
By following the step-by-step guide outlined in this article, you can easily deactivate plugins and resolve conflicts or errors that may impact your website’s performance.