How to Disable Plugins in WordPress

Most WordPress blogs make use of at least several plugins while some have dozens of plugins installed and activated at any one time. Plugins provide a variety of additional features and functionality to your blog, but sometimes using a larger number of them can lead to conflicts and other problems. For these reasons, you may sometimes find it necessary to disable plugins in order to troubleshoot more effectively. This guide explains how to disable plugins either individually or in bulk.

 

If you want to disable one or more plugins, you can easily do so from within the WordPress administrator dashboard. Disabling a plugin will remove any features, such as administrator dashboard menus, widgets or other on-page elements, but it will not uninstall the plugin or modify any associated settings. If you enable the plugin again, everything will be just as you left it.

 

1. Log into your administrator dashboard and click on “Plugins” in the left-side column.
2. Scroll down the list of installed plugins on the next page to locate the one you want to disable. Click “Deactivate” below the name of the plugin.
3. Repeat the above step to deactivate any other plugins as required. In order to uninstall a plugin, you will also need to deactivate it before the delete option will appear.
4. To disable plugins in bulk, check the boxes beside the plugins you want to disable. Alternatively, select all plugins by checking the box at the very top of the list beside where it says “Plugin”. From the “Bulk Actions” dropdown box at the top of the page, click “Deactivate” and click “Apply”.
5. Re-enable any plugins as required by selecting them and clicking “Activate”. Alternatively, enable multiple plugins simultaneously by checking the boxes beside them and using the “Activate” option from the list of bulk actions.
   Disable Plugin Plgn

If you have a particularly large number of activated plugins, and you need to disable all of them for a time, the above method can be somewhat time consuming. Another option would be to simply log in to your FTP server, navigate to the wp-contents folder and rename the plugins folder. This way, WordPress will no longer be able to find your plugins, in which case they will all effectively be deactivated and uninstalled. To get your plugins back, all you will need to do is rename the folder back to Plugins.