{"id":13649,"date":"2026-06-02T01:31:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T06:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mickeylieberman.com\/02wptest\/?p=13649"},"modified":"2026-05-24T09:03:56","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T14:03:56","slug":"how-to-restart-a-wordpress-site","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mickeylieberman.com\/02wptest\/how-to-restart-a-wordpress-site\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Restart a WordPress Site"},"content":{"rendered":"

How to Restart a WordPress Site<\/span><\/p>\n

Resetting a WordPress site to its default settings can be a lifesaver.<\/span><\/p>\n

Whether you\u2019re testing multiple plugins and themes, using a demo site, or simply want to revert your changes.<\/span><\/p>\n

Why Restart a WordPress Site?<\/span><\/p>\n

Restarting or resetting WordPress restores it to its default settings.<\/span><\/p>\n

It will delete everything so you can start over fresh.<\/span><\/p>\n

Where you might want to restart or reset a WordPress site:<\/span><\/p>\n

1. You\u2019re using a demo site on your computer.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve installed WordPress on localhost, then you might want to reset it after you\u2019ve built a site and moved it from localhost to a live server.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you\u2019re a developer and constantly test themes and plugins on your local install.<\/span><\/p>\n

2. You\u2019ve been working on a new site and want to start over.<\/span><\/p>\n

Maybe you\u2019ve been busy creating a blog or website, but you are not happy with the customizations.<\/span><\/p>\n

3. You\u2019re going to rework a client\u2019s website.<\/span><\/p>\n

If they want something very different from what\u2019s already there, then you might need to reset WordPress on the staging server to start from scratch.<\/span><\/p>\n

4. You\u2019re learning about WordPress, hands-on.<\/span><\/p>\n

Maybe you\u2019ve had a go at developing your plugins or themes, or you\u2019ve been experimenting with a starter theme.<\/span><\/p>\n

How to Restart and Reset a WordPress Site<\/span><\/p>\n

Before you begin, it\u2019s important to create a full backup of your site using a WordPress backup plugin.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is important in case you want to restore your site from the backup after restarting it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Duplicator plugin for backups.<\/span><\/p>\n

It allows you to easily create on-demand backups that you can use to restore your website with one click.<\/span><\/p>\n

Restart Your WordPress Site with Advanced WordPress Reset<\/span><\/p>\n

Now you\u2019re ready to move on and restart your WordPress site.<\/span><\/p>\n

Install and activate the Advanced WordPress Reset plugin.<\/span><\/p>\n

Once the plugin is activated, you need to go to Tools \u00bb Advanced WP Reset in your WordPress dashboard.<\/span><\/p>\n

Restart your WordPress website by simply typing \u2018reset\u2019 in the Reset database field.<\/span><\/p>\n

Once you\u2019ve entered the text, simply click the \u2018Reset database\u2019 button.<\/span><\/p>\n

When you reset your website, your plugins and theme files are not deleted.<\/span><\/p>\n

All the plugins are deactivated except for Advanced WordPress Reset.<\/span><\/p>\n

You can then manually activate each plugin after restarting your website.<\/span><\/p>\n

Simply go to the Plugins \u00bb Installed Plugins page from your WordPress dashboard and click the \u2018Activate\u2019 link under the plugin name.<\/span><\/p>\n

Configuring Custom Reset Options in Advanced WordPress Reset<\/span><\/p>\n

Aside from restarting your entire website, Advanced WordPress Reset also lets you reset specific items on your website, like comments, or clean the uploads folder.<\/span><\/p>\n

To reset individual files, you can go to Tools \u00bb Advanced WP Reset from your WordPress admin panel and then click the \u2018Custom reset\u2019 tab.<\/span><\/p>\n

Next, you can click the \u2018Run reset now\u2019 button to restart different items on your website.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you used multiple plugins or themes for testing and now want a clean start, then you can delete all the plugins and themes.<\/span><\/p>\n

Similarly, you can clean the uploads folder and wp-content folder.<\/span><\/p>\n

The plugin also gives you different options to reset comments on your site.<\/span><\/p>\n

Simply scroll down to the \u2018Reset Comments\u2019 section in the plugin settings.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here, you can delete all the comments, pending comments, spam comments, trashed comments, pingbacks, and trackbacks with a single click.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you are unsure about which settings to choose, we recommend leaving these settings as is and using the default reset options instead.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How to Restart a WordPress Site Resetting a WordPress site to its default settings can be a lifesaver. Whether you\u2019re testing multiple plugins and themes,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wordpress-recovery","wpcat-2-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mickeylieberman.com\/02wptest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mickeylieberman.com\/02wptest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mickeylieberman.com\/02wptest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mickeylieberman.com\/02wptest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mickeylieberman.com\/02wptest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mickeylieberman.com\/02wptest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13649\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mickeylieberman.com\/02wptest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mickeylieberman.com\/02wptest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mickeylieberman.com\/02wptest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}