How to Turn Off WordPress Plugins

What is a plugin?

WordPress is a popular tool for building websites. A plugin is a small add-on that gives your site a new feature, like a contact form. Think of it as an app on a phone. Sometimes a plugin clashes with another one and causes errors, a white screen or a login problem.

Method 1: From the dashboard

Use this if you can still log in.

1. Log in to WordPress at yourdomain.com/wp-admin.
2. Click Plugins in the left menu.
3. Click Installed Plugins.

   

4. Find the plugin you want to stop.
5. Click Deactivate under its name.

To stop many at once, tick the boxes next to them. Choose Deactivate from the Bulk actions list and click Apply.

Method 2: From cPanel, when you cannot log in

Careful: take a backup first. Renaming folders is safe, but deleting is not.

1. Log in to your client area and open cPanel.
2. Click File Manager.

   

3. Open the folder where WordPress is installed. This is often public_html.
4. Open wp-content.

   

5. Right-click the plugins folder and choose Rename.
6. Change the name to plugins_off and save.
7. Try to log in to wp-admin again. All plugins are now off.
8. Rename the folder back to plugins.

   

   

9. In the dashboard, go to Plugins. Turn them on one by one. When the problem returns, you have found the bad plugin.

Turn off just one plugin from File Manager

1. Open wp-content/plugins.
2. Find the folder of that plugin.
3. Rename it, for example by adding -off at the end.

WordPress will turn it off because it cannot find it.

Quick recap

• Use Plugins then Deactivate if you can log in.
• If not, rename the plugins folder in File Manager.

  

  

• Rename it back and test plugins one at a time.
• Back up before you change files.