How to Easily Deactivate WordPress Plugins (Beginner‘s Guide)

Do you want to learn how to deactivate WordPress plugins? One of the best things about WordPress plugins is that you can turn them off temporarily by deactivating them. You can also completely remove WordPress plugins by uninstalling them.

As a WordPress beginner, you need to know how to deactivate one or all of your WordPress plugins. Learning this will help you with troubleshooting and fixing common WordPress errors.

In this guide, I‘ll share my insight as a webmaster with over 15 years of experience to help you learn how to easily deactivate WordPress plugins. My goal is to provide actionable tips to help you better manage plugins on your website.

Why Would You Want to Deactivate WordPress Plugins?

There are a few common reasons why you may need to deactivate a plugin:

• Troubleshooting conflicts – If a plugin is causing issues on your site, deactivating it can quickly determine if it‘s the culprit. This allows you to isolate the problem plugin.

• Temporarily disabling a plugin – Perhaps you want to test how your site performs without a particular plugin. Deactivating lets you easily turn it off without deleting it completely.

• Removing bloat – Over time you may accumulate plugins you no longer need. Deactivating cleans up the clutter without uninstalling plugins you may use again.

• Switching plugins – If you want to swap plugins, deactivating the old one prevents conflicts with the new one. You can delete it after confirming the new plugin works.

• Optimizing performance – Too many plugins can slow down your site. Deactivating unused plugins can help improve site speed.

• Preparing for migration – It‘s recommended to deactivate plugins before migrating or restoring a WordPress site. This prevents issues.

So in summary, deactivating gives you an easy way to temporarily disable plugins without removing them entirely from your site. This is useful for troubleshooting, maintenance, optimizing performance, and preparing for migrations.

How Many Active Plugins Does the Average WordPress Site Have?

According to WordPress statistics, the average WordPress site has around 18 active plugins. However, sites can often accumulate dozens of unnecessary plugins over time.

Too many active plugins lead to:

• Slower page load times
• Increased security vulnerabilities
• More conflicts and bugs
• Bloated backups
• Cluttered admin dashboard

That‘s why routinely deactivating or uninstalling unused plugins is so important for the health of your site. It‘s recommended to aim for 10 or fewer active plugins when possible.

How to Deactivate a Single WordPress Plugin

Let‘s start with deactivating a single WordPress plugin.

To temporarily disable or deactivate a plugin, you need to visit the "Plugins > Installed Plugins" page in your WordPress admin area.

From here, locate the plugin you want to deactivate. Hover your mouse over the plugin‘s row, and a "Deactivate" link will appear.

Clicking on the "Deactivate" link will instantly deactivate that plugin. It remains installed on your website, but WordPress will stop loading it.

To start using the plugin again, simply click the "Activate" link below it.

Troubleshooting Tip: Test Deactivating Plugins to Find Conflicts

If you experience issues after installing a new plugin, try deactivating plugins one by one to isolate the problem. This troubleshooting tip can help pinpoint plugin conflicts.

Narrow it down by:

1. Deactivate all plugins except the new one causing issues.

2. If the problem goes away, reactivate plugins one at a time until the issue returns.

3. The last plugin you activated before the issue recurs is likely the conflict.

Deactivating plugins systematically like this makes troubleshooting so much easier!

How to Bulk Deactivate Multiple WordPress Plugins

Sometimes you may need to quickly deactivate multiple or all plugins on your site. This helps with troubleshooting.

Instead of deactivating each one individually, WordPress lets you bulk deactivate plugins:

1. Go to "Plugins > Installed Plugins"

2. Check the boxes next to each plugin you want to deactivate. Or check the box at the top to select all.

3. Select "Deactivate" from the "Bulk Actions" dropdown.

4. Click the "Apply" button.

WordPress will now deactivate all the selected plugins. This is useful when you need to deactivate a lot of plugins at once.

How Many Plugins Should You Deactivate for Troubleshooting?

According to WordPress experts, it‘s best to deactivate all plugins when troubleshooting, especially if you‘re unable to access your dashboard.

Once you regain access after deactivating plugins, you can selectively reactivate them one by one to isolate any conflicts. Leaving any active initially can make troubleshooting more difficult.

However, there are a couple exceptions where some plugins may need to remain active:

• Security plugins like Wordfence for firewall protection
• Backup plugins to allow you to restore your site if needed
• Performance caching plugins that don‘t require WP-admin access

Use your best judgment on which plugins are absolutely necessary for security and troubleshooting when deactivating everything.

How to Deactivate All Plugins via FTP

If you‘re locked out of your WordPress dashboard, you can‘t deactivate plugins from there. But you can still deactivate all plugins by using FTP access:

1. Connect to your site via FTP using a client like FileZilla.

2. Navigate to the /wp-content/plugins/ folder in your WordPress root directory.

3. Right click on the "plugins" folder and select "Rename".

4. Rename the folder something like "plugins-deactivated".

5. Save the changes.

WordPress looks for plugins in that folder. By renaming it, all plugins will appear deactivated from the dashboard. This gives you access again without deleting plugins.

Tip: How to Regain Dashboard Access if Locked Out

If you get locked out of your WordPress dashboard, here are the steps I recommend based on my experience:

1. Use FTP to deactivate plugins as explained above.

2. Try logging in again. The issue may be resolved.

3. If still blocked, rename wp-admin folder to wp-admin-temp via FTP.

4. After regained access, rename folder back to wp-admin.

5. Reactivate plugins one by one to find the conflict.

Following this systematic approach will help you troubleshoot login issues and identify problematic plugins.

Manually Deactivate Plugins via phpMyAdmin

Another way to deactivate all plugins is by directly editing your database through phpMyAdmin.

1. Log in to your web host‘s control panel.

2. Click on the phpMyAdmin icon under Databases.

3. Select your WordPress database from the left menu.

4. Click the "Browse" button next to the wp_options table.

5. Scroll down and click "Edit" next to the active_plugins row.

6. Delete all data inside the option_value field and save.

This will clear the list of active plugins, deactivating all of them. Now you can regain access to your WordPress dashboard.

What‘s the Difference Between Deactivating vs Uninstalling?

What exactly is the difference between deactivating vs uninstalling a plugin?

Deactivating simply turns the plugin off. The files remain on your server and database. You can easily reactivate it anytime.

Uninstalling completely deletes the plugin files and database data. The plugin is removed fully from your site. You‘d have to reinstall it to use it again.

In summary:

• Deactivate to temporarily disable plugins.
• Uninstall to permanently remove plugins from your site.

Deactivating gives you more flexibility if you want to use the plugin again. Uninstalling is better for completely removing plugins you no longer need.

How Many Plugins Should You Uninstall for a Healthy Site?

According to WordPress experts, the ideal number of active plugins for a healthy, well-performing site is around 5-10 plugins.

Any more than that, and you risk:

• Increased load time – Each plugin adds overhead. Too many hurt speed.
• Security vulnerabilities – More plugins means more potential exploits.
• Cluttered dashboard – Managing plugins gets confusing.
• Conflicts – More plugins leads to higher chance of incompatibilities.

Regularly uninstalling unused plugins helps avoid these pitfalls. Monitor your site for performance impacts and uninstall plugins that are no longer needed.

How to Uninstall a WordPress Plugin

If you want to fully remove a plugin from your site, you can uninstall it:

1. Go to "Plugins > Installed Plugins" in your dashboard.

2. If the plugin is active, deactivate it first.

3. Click on the "Delete" link below the plugin.

4. Confirm that you want to uninstall the plugin.

5. WordPress will remove the plugin‘s files and data.

Uninstalling is permanent, so only do it for plugins you‘re sure you won‘t use again. Otherwise, deactivating is a better option since it‘s temporary.

Tip: Remove Leftover Traces After Uninstalling

When uninstalling a plugin, some leftover plugin data may remain:

• Custom database tables
• Uploaded files
• Residual code snippets

It‘s recommended to remove these traces for a clean uninstall:

• Delete custom DB tables in phpMyAdmin
• Remove uploaded files via FTP
• Use a cleanup plugin like WP Sweep to purge leftovers

This helps ensure all traces of the plugin are removed from your site after uninstalling it.

Should You Keep Deactivated Plugins Installed?

You may be wondering…should you keep inactive plugins installed, or just go ahead and uninstall them?

The best practice is to uninstall plugins you‘re no longer using. Here‘s why:

• Security – Inactive plugins can still contain vulnerabilities. Removing them eliminates this risk.

• Clutter – Too many unused plugins makes it hard to manage the ones you actually need.

• Performance – Deactivated plugins take up disk space and can slow down your site.

• Backups – Plugins you don‘t use anymore unnecessarily bloat your backups.

• Scans – Security tools may detect inactive plugins as vulnerabilities.

• Maintenance – You have to spend time updating and maintaining plugins you‘re not even using.

For these reasons, it‘s best to do some "plugin spring cleaning" and remove the ones you no longer need. Keeping your site free of plugin clutter has many benefits.

When Should You Reactivate Deactivated Plugins?

If you temporarily deactivate a plugin, when should you consider reactivating it? Here are some signs it may be time:

• The issue it was causing has been resolved
• You need the plugin‘s features or functionality again
• You upgraded WordPress or other plugins and compatibility improved
• The plugin has been updated and bugs were fixed
• Site performance can support reactivating it
• Any security exploits have been patched

Monitor your deactivated plugins and reactivate them if the reasons for deactivating are no longer relevant. Keeping plugins deactivated indefinitely if they‘re still useful is not ideal.

Wrapping Up

I hope this guide gave you a good understanding of how to deactivate and uninstall WordPress plugins.

The key takeaways are:

• Use deactivation to temporarily disable plugins.
• Uninstall to fully remove unused plugins.
• Deactivate plugins before migrations or troubleshooting.
• Remove deactivated plugins you‘re not using anymore.

Properly managing plugins by deactivating and uninstalling them will keep your WordPress site running smoothly and securely. Let me know if you have any other questions!