There are several reasons why someone may want to reset their WordPress website. Among many, two are the most common ones:
1. You made your website as a newbie, and as such you have made mistakes. Since then you have grown as a website owner and of course you wish to correct these mistakes, or simply erase them.
2. You are a person who regularly tests WordPress products, add-ons, plugins, themes and such. This means that you have lots and lots of files and folders that have been used once or twice. Unfortunately, this also means that it would take significant amount of your time to delete every theme, plugin or other WordPress product you have downloaded and installed.
In both cases, it is easier to simply delete items in batches – or simply reset the website.
Resetting The Website With WP Reset
The easiest way to reset a website is to simply use the plugin developed for that purpose. WP Reset is intended for fast resetting of the database to default state. The best part lies in the fact that only customizations and content are deleted. The plugin is very very fast – the process itself takes only a few seconds - which means that the installation itself takes longer than the resetting!
The plugin is installed in the WordPress admin page --> Plugins --> Add New. The admin types in WP Reset in the search bar and installs the first search result. The plugin has black and red round logo. Then the admin activates the plugin and can immediately reset the website.
The plugin itself has fail-safety mechanisms ensuring the data cannot be accidentally lost, and the reset process itself has to be confirmed twice before starting – once again ensuring nothing gets erased by accident.
WP Reset is completely integrated with WP Webhooks plugin, connecting it to any 3 rd party system and enables initiating actions from WordPress and any other application.
What WP Reset Does
There are two groups of items mentioned here – what WP Reset deletes and what it leaves unmodified.
WP Reset does not delete nor modify the following:
1. The website title, address, its language and search engine visibility settings
2. Plugins, uploads and themes
3. Media files (these are unmodified, but are not anymore listed within Media in admin)
WP Reset does delete:
1. All pages, comments, users, posts and media entries
2. All default WP and custom database tables (custom ones with prefix wp-config.php)
After resetting the website, the admin is logged out and automatically logged in. The admin dashboard is the first page the admin is redirected to.
For users with multisite – the developers advise caution! The plugin has not been tested with the main site, and the developers are working on resolving this aspect of the plugin. So far, the plugin can safely be used with sub-sites and works as planned.
Additional Features Of WP Reset
The plugin also has a neat additional feature, in the form of partial reset tools. These tools enable deleting only sections of the website that require resetting.
The following can be deleted via partial reset tools:
1. Delete all expired and non-expired transient-related database entries,
2. Delete all files and folders located in uploads folder,
3. Delete all plugins (apart from WP Reset plugin),
4. Delete theme options - this feature actually resets all options for themes that use WP theme mods API,
5. Delete all themes,
6. Delete all custom database tables,
7. Delete .htaccess files
Final Thoughts On WP Reset
In the end there are a few things to say about the WP Reset plugin for WordPress website resets:
1. The plugin is simple to use
2. The plugin is free
3. The plugin has 5-star reviews
4. The plugin has excellent support team
This is a no-brainer for any WordPress website owner who needs to do an overhaul on their website. WP Reset is user-friendly and practically recommends itself.
If you liked WP Reset, don’t forget to check other plugins from Web Factory like UnderConstructionPage, Google Maps Widget, Coming Soon & Maintenance Mode as well as Security Ninja.