How to Manually Deactivate WordPress Plugins via phpMyAdmin

Do you need to deactivate all WordPress plugins, but you are unable to access the WordPress admin area?

During WordPress troubleshooting, you will be often advised to deactivate all plugins and then reactivate them one by one. But what if you can’t access wp-admin to deactivate them?

In this article, we will show you how to easily deactivate all WordPress plugins when you are not able to access the wp-admin area.

If you prefer written instructions or want to move at your own pace, then continue reading the instructions below.

Deactivate All Plugins Using phpMyAdmin

The FTP method is definitely easier, in our opinion. However, you can also deactivate all WordPress plugins using phpMyAdmin.

Next, you will need to log in to your web hosting dashboard. In this example, we are showing you a cPanel dashboard. Your hosting account’s dashboard may look different.

You will need to click the ‘phpMyAdmin’ icon under the Databases section.

This will launch phpMyAdmin in a new browser window.

You will need to select your WordPress database if it is not already selected. After that, you will be able to see WordPress database tables.

As you can see, all tables in the database have wp_ prefix before the table name. Your tables may have a different database prefix.

You need to click on the wp_options table. Inside the wp_options table, you will see rows of different options. Find the option ‘active_plugins’ and then click on the ‘Edit’ link next to it. (It is usually located on page 2 in the options table.)

On the next screen, you will need to change the option_value field to a:0:{}.

Then, click the ‘Go’ button to save your changes.

You have successfully deactivated all WordPress plugins using phpMyAdmin. If a plugin was stopping you from accessing WordPress admin, then you should be able to log in now.

Summary

We hope that this article helped you deactivate all plugins in WordPress