Learning how to uninstall WordPress from your site it’s important if you want to change the type of that website. Really, you will find that it’s not that hard to do, but only if you follow this article carefully.
Everywhere you go searching on the web, you will see a multitude of tutorials on how to install WordPress. Even though that’s very useful, you might need to uninstall it at some point.
You can ask, but why do I need to do that. That will depend on your case; you might have had a faulty WordPress installation so that you will need a fresh one.
Moreover, you might want to change CMS. Uninstalling WordPress is necessary to go ahead with that. As you can see, there’s no scarcity of reasons why someone might need an uninstall.
But whatever that is, you will still go through the same procedures to remove WordPress. But before I go into details about what these methods are, there are a few things you need to do as precautions.
Back Up
Before you start with the process of uninstalling, an excellent thing to do is do a backup. Keeping a backup is never a bad idea and it comes in handy especially when you anticipate making changes to your site. It also comes in handy when you decide to uninstall WordPress.
Doing a backup will help you maintain your page no matter what happens. Doing a backup is an easy process, and there are a few ways you can back up for your website. One of those ways is to do so on the control panel that your hosting provider supplied.
You can also use other tools or plugins to perform this. In my opinion, one rather efficient plugin for this is UpdraftPlus. When using other tools or plugins be sure to check for the places the backup will go to. Try using an email or do a local backup, in that case you will be even more safe.
But one thing to keep in mind is that when you do a backup, try to back up everything possible. In case you forget something important, you will not be able to revert to your old page through that backup that you made. You can still revert back by getting help from the provider, but that might not be the case on some occasions.
Uninstalling WordPress
There are a few different ways you can uninstall WordPress. As previously mentioned, with the backup process, you can do this on your web hosting control panel. Using your control panel will change from provider to provider since almost all of them use different ones.
FTP Client
Another method of uninstalling WordPress is by doing it on an FTP client. There are a lot of FTP clients in the market; the most famous one is FileZilla. Downloading and installing your FTP client is the necessary first step. Then you have to open the app and connect it with your page.
Afterwards, perform a backup, as we said previously. Then tick all the boxes for the WordPress files and then click delete. After that, you need to remove the Database; you will have a full clean uninstall by doing that. Whatever plans you had in mind regarding your page, you can go ahead with them now.
Also Read: How to Install WordPress on Godaddy – A Beginner’s Guide
Web Hosting Control Panels
There are a lot of different web hosting control panels out there, and they all have different methods of uninstallations. You must have heard that cPanel is quite popular for this. Another couple of good ones that I feel should be mentioned are hPanel and Plesk. There are a ton more, but these are the most used ones.
cPanel and Plesk are the most used ones, so in some cases, host providers have them both as options. In general, cPanel has more users then Plesk, and it is more user friendly in our experience. Among these host providers that use both cPanel and Plesk are GoDaddy, and HostGator.
For only cPanel, there are Bluehost, A2 Hosting, SiteGround, and many more. Plesk, on the other hand, has less variety of host providers, with others apart from the two I already mentioned are LiquidWeb and KnownHost. There could be more about both of them, but these are the best.
Since different providers use different control panels, they also use different methods of performing this task. Some of them implement special tools that make this whole process easy.
Plesk
Among the most used web hosting control panels. This one will make the process of uninstalling very easy. What you need to do is login into the control panel; after that, you can go on two different ways. You can either go in the Files section or the WordPress section.
Where are all the files in your page? To see this at a glance you can go to the files section. To be safe, you can do an extraction so that you can keep the files safe no matter what happens. Then you can tick all the boxes and proceed on deleting them.
Look at the option called “WordPress”; that’s where you will find a lot of options. From there, you can back up your page. If you are done with that part, continue pressing the Remove button. After that, go into the Files section to see if everything is clear and the uninstalling was clean.
For both methods, you need to go into the Databases section, open phpMyAdmin, and then delete the databases.
Also Read: How to Edit Footer in WordPress – Following 4 Easy Methods
cPanel
As I have said before, this is a very well-liked web hosting control panel. If you use this, you can uninstall WordPress easily. By now, you already know that you need to login to your control panel first.
One of the methods used here is the file removal from the File Manager; just like the rest of them, all you have to do is tick the boxes and delete the WordPress files. Don’t forget to back up everything, in case you need it.
Because cPanel is very popular, and a lot of different host providers use it. You can find some other tools implemented by these companies. These tools will make this whole process very easy.
For example, SiteGround, one of the biggest hosting providers, uses the Softaculous auto-installer. However, you cannot use this method unless you have used Softaculous auto-installer to install WordPress in the first place. If you haven’t, try the File Manager method.
If you have, after opening the Softaculous auto-installer, click on the WordPress button. What does this button do? This will let you see a list of your installed WordPress version. You will see a red X; press that so you can go ahead with the removal of WordPress.
Also Read: How to Edit Menu in WordPress – Use These Easy Steps Below
After you have pressed the red X, you will go into another page, which has a few options for you. These options are Remove Directory, Remove Database, and Remove Database Users.
You can save them from deletion by not ticking the boxes on their sides, but you should tick those boxes if you want a full clean uninstall. Then all you have to do is press the Remove Installation button and wait for it to finish.
hPanel
This control panel was made by Hostinger, and it makes this procedure very easy. You can first try using the Auto-Installer feature. The other one is by going into the File Manager.
For the first option, all you need to do is go into the “List of Installed Applications.” Once you have done that, look for WordPress and then click the Delete button on the side of it. With the File Manager method, it is just like the rest of the others, you tick all the boxes and remove them, and as always, don’t forget the Database.
Also Read: How to Change WordPress Excerpt Length – 4 Easy Ways
Closing Thoughts
In general, the process of uninstalling WordPress is relatively easy. The easiest route you can take is using the host providers’ tools, making this process as simple as possible. While for the best course you can take is by going into the File Managers yourself. If you do that, be sure to delete the right things, but to future proof that backups are great.
If you anticipate uninstalling your WordPress sometime in the future, make sure to check out the options your hosting provider offers. Then, you will have a solid idea on what to do in the future.
If you have any problems with any of the methods mentioned in this article, you can always contact support. Sometimes it is not even worth the time finding what you did wrong. Support is still there, and they have all the necessary tools to help you with any problems you will have.
Before you decide you want to uninstall WordPress, make sure to have a few things set straight. As I have mentioned a few times, backups are essential to procedures like these.
What do you plan on doing after you have uninstalled? That thought should also be given priority. If you plan on doing a reinstallation of WordPress, you are safe to proceed, but if you plan on doing something else, make sure that your provider can do that thing.
Apart from these, you are set to go. So you can go ahead and uninstall WordPress but be careful because you don’t want to screw things up and add more work for yourself. Let me know how it goes in the comments!
