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How To Disable Or Delete Plugins / Themes On A Disabled WordPress Site

Summary

This article explains how to deactivate, change or delete themes and plugins on a WordPress site without the dashboard. This may be helpful if you have a plugin or theme that has malfunctioned and caused you to lose access to the dashboard.

Note:Some of these steps will require you to know the name of your WordPress database. If you do not know the name of your WordPress database please see How to Find your WordPress Database first.

Deactivating a Plugin
Removing a Plugin Using the File Manager
Changing the WordPress Theme
Removing a WordPress Theme

Deactivating a Plugin

These steps explain how to deactive plugins on a WordPress site without the dashboard.

Note: This will deactivate all plugins, however it does not remove the plugin, or its settings.

Accessing phpMyAdmin

Log in to your Bluehost cPanel account.
Click on the Hosting tab near the top and then cPanel.
On the cpanel find the group of icons labled "Database Tools" and click on "phpMyAdmin".
Enter your hosting account username and password then press go to login to phpMyAdmin.

Clearing Active Plugins

In phpMyAdmin find your WordPress database in the list of databases. In this case our example database is examplec_wo5647.
In the list of tables click on the table name that ends with "options".
In the options table click on the column heading "option_name" to sort the table rows by name. This should make active_plugins the first table row.
Click the edit link on the active_plugins row.
Clear out all text in the option_value box.
Click the "Go" button at the bottom.

You should get a page indicating that the query was executed. You are finished, all plugins should now be disabled in WordPress.

Removing a Plugin Using the File Manager

Note: This method removes the plugin from your website. You will have to reinstall it before you can use the plugin again.

Login to your Bluehost account.
Click on the hosting tab near the top.
Click cpanel.
On the cpanel find the group of icons labled "File Management" and click on "File Manager".
You may get a popup asking you to select the directory you want to start in. Choose the "Document Root for:" option and select the website you want to remove a plugin from.
Make sure you are in the directory for your WordPress site, then go to the wp-content folder.
Open the plugins folder.
Find the plugin folder you wish to remove then right click on it and select delete.

The plugin is now removed from your WordPress installation.

Changing the WordPress Theme

These instructions will explain how to change the theme setting in WordPress without the WordPress dashboard.

Accessing phpMyAdmin

Login to your Bluehost account.
Click on the hosting tab near the top.
Click cpanel.
On the cpanel find the group of icons labled "Database Tools" and click on "phpMyAdmin".
Enter your hosting account username and password then press go to login to phpMyAdmin.

Change the Theme Setting in phpMyAdmin

In phpMyAdmin find your WordPress database in the list of databases. In this case our example database is examplec_wo5647.
In the list of tables click on the table name that ends with "options".
In the options table locate the rows for template and stylesheet. They are usually on the second page and their option_id will be around 40.
Click edit to change both the theme and stylesheet's option_value to the theme you wish to use. This should be the exact, case sensitve name of the folder inside wp-content/themes that contains the theme you want to use.
Click the "Go" button.

The theme should now be set to your chosen theme.

Removing a WordPress Theme

Note: This method removes the theme from your website. You will have to reinstall it before you can use the theme again.

Login to your Bluehost account.
Click on the hosting tab near the top.
Click cpanel.
On the cpanel find the group of icons labled "File Management" and click on "File Manager".
You may get a popup asking you to select the directory you want to start in. Choose the "Document Root for:" option and select the website you want to disable plugins for.
Make sure you are in the directory for your WordPress site, then go to the wp-content folder.
Open the themes folder.
Find the folder theme you wish to remove then right click on it and select delete.

The theme should now be removed from your WordPress website.

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