How to deactivate all WordPress plugins by renaming the plugins folder

August 2, 2025

Why

You want to quickly determine whether a problem is being caused by a plugin. To do so, you deactivate all plugins to see if the problem continues. If the problem went away, it was probably caused by a plugin. You can then restore the plugins to begin narrowing down which one.

Backup your WordPress website
Always make a backup before modifying system files.
Make a note of which plugins are activated.
When restoring plugins, you may want to ensure the same ones are activated again.
Connect to your WordPress site with SFTP or FTP
Once connected, navigate to the /wp-content/ folder
Rename the plugins folder to something else
WordPress will automatically disable all plugins when it cannot find the plugins folder.
To restore, rename the folder back to plugins

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