How to Restart a WordPress Site – Reset WordPress the Fast Way
By Naveed Ahmed | Reviewed by Syed Balkhi | August 24, 2022 | Reader Disclosure
Want to quickly and effectively restart your WordPress site? In my 15 years of experience, I’ve found that resetting a WordPress site to its default settings can be a lifesaver. Whether you’re testing various plugins and themes, using a demo site, or simply want to revert changes, this guide will walk you through the steps to restart or reset your WordPress site in the fastest way possible.
One of the most common questions I get from people starting out with WordPress is “how do I reset my WordPress site?” It’s actually pretty simple, and the process is very similar to resetting your phone to factory settings.
You can do this without losing your content or data, but it’s important to create a backup first! This will ensure that you can restore your site if anything goes wrong.
Why Restart a WordPress Site?
Resetting WordPress reverts it to its default settings, similar to a factory reset on your phone. It wipes out all your apps and customizations, letting you start fresh.
Here are some situations where you might want to restart or reset a WordPress site:
- You’re using a demo site on your own computer. If you’ve installed WordPress on localhost, you may want to reset it after building a site and moving it from localhost to a live server. If you’re a developer constantly testing themes and plugins on your local setup, resetting every quarter helps you start fresh.
- You’ve been working on a new site and want to start over. Maybe you’ve been busy creating a blog or website, but you’re not happy with the customizations. Instead of undoing everything, you can reset WordPress and quickly start again with a fresh design.
- You’re redesigning a client’s website. If they want something significantly different from what’s there, you might need to reset WordPress on the staging server to start with a blank slate.
- You’re learning about WordPress hands-on. Maybe you’ve been trying to develop your own plugins or themes or experimenting with a starter theme. You might want to begin again with a new WordPress installation.
Tip: Are you building a new WordPress website? Consider hiring WPBeginner’s WordPress website design service. For a small fee, our expert team will help you establish a site with a unique and professional design.
Video Tutorial
If you prefer written instructions, keep reading.
How to Restart and Reset a WordPress Site
Restarting your WordPress site may seem daunting, but it’s actually quite straightforward. We’ll guide you step-by-step through the entire reset process.
Before you begin, it’s crucial to create a full backup of your site using a WordPress backup plugin. This is important in case you need to restore your site from the backup after resetting it. I recommend using Duplicator for backups. It allows you to easily create backups on demand, which you can use to restore your website with a single click.
Reset Your WordPress Site with Advanced WordPress Reset
Now, you’re ready to proceed and restart your WordPress site. We’ll use the Advanced WordPress Reset plugin for this tutorial.
- First, you’ll need to install and activate the Advanced WordPress Reset plugin. For detailed instructions, check out our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
- Once the plugin is activated, go to Tools » Advanced WP Reset in your WordPress dashboard. Here, you can restart your WordPress website by simply typing ‘reset’ in the ‘Reset Database’ field.
- After entering the text, just click the ‘Reset Database’ button.
When you reset your website, it doesn’t delete your plugin or theme files. However, all plugins are deactivated except for Advanced WordPress Reset. You can manually activate each plugin after restarting your website. Simply navigate to the Plugins » Installed Plugins page from your WordPress dashboard and click the ‘Activate’ link below the plugin name.
Configuring Custom Reset Options in Advanced WordPress Reset
Besides restarting your entire website, Advanced WordPress Reset also allows you to reset specific elements of your website, such as comments or cleaning up the uploads folder.
To reset individual files, go to Tools » Advanced WP Reset from your WordPress admin dashboard and click on the ‘Custom Reset’ tab. Then, click the ‘Run Reset Now’ button to reset different elements of your website.
For instance, if you’ve used multiple plugins or themes for testing and now want a fresh start, you can erase all plugins and themes. Similarly, you can clean up the uploads folder and the wp-content folder.
The plugin also provides various options for resetting your site’s comments. Simply scroll down to the ‘Reset Comments’ section in the plugin’s settings.
Here, you can delete all comments, pending comments, spam comments, trash comments, pingbacks, and trackbacks with a single click.
If you’re unsure which settings to choose, I recommend leaving these settings as they are and using the default reset options instead. This saves you the time of deleting individual comments, giving you a fresh start on your WordPress site.
Conclusion
I hope this tutorial has helped you learn how to reset a WordPress site quickly. You might also like our ultimate guide to speeding up WordPress and our list of must-have WordPress plugins for all sites.
FAQs
How do I reset my WordPress site without losing my content?
While a full reset typically wipes your database, some plugins like Advanced WordPress Reset let you customize what gets reset. You can choose to keep content, themes, or plugins while resetting other elements.
Can I reset my WordPress site without losing my plugins and themes?
You can reset your WordPress site without deleting your plugins and themes, but they will be deactivated. You can reactivate them after the reset.
What happens to my users when I reset my WordPress site?
Resetting your WordPress site will delete all user accounts and their data. It’s essential to make a backup before you proceed.
What if I want to keep my posts and pages but reset everything else?
You can use a database backup plugin to export your posts and pages and import them to a fresh WordPress installation. This will preserve your content while resetting other elements.
Can I reset my WordPress site without using a plugin?
Yes, you can reset your WordPress site manually by deleting the database tables through your hosting provider’s control panel. However, this is a more advanced method and should only be attempted by experienced users.
How do I reset my WordPress site if I can’t access the dashboard?
If you can’t access your WordPress dashboard, you can reset it through your hosting provider’s control panel or by using FTP to directly access the files.
What are some good WordPress backup plugins?
Duplicator, UpdraftPlus, and BackupBuddy are popular and reliable WordPress backup plugins.
Is it safe to reset my WordPress site?
Resetting your WordPress site is generally safe if you have a backup of your website. However, it’s important to understand the implications of resetting your site, as it will delete all your data. It’s always a good practice to test the reset process on a staging site before performing it on your live website.
What are some alternative methods for resetting my WordPress site?
Besides plugins like Advanced WordPress Reset, some other alternatives for resetting your WordPress site include using database backup and restore tools, manually deleting database tables, and reinstalling WordPress.
Why should I reset my WordPress site if it’s already working?
You might want to reset your WordPress site if you’re experiencing performance issues, have made significant changes that are causing problems, or simply want a fresh start. It can help fix errors, clear out old data, and improve performance.
If you’re interested in learning more about tech news, feel free to visit my website: www.naveedahmed.me.