If for some reason you find that you are unable to access WP Admin, likely because of a security plugin or conflict/corrupt plugin, you can disable the plugin(s) in question without access to WP Admin. Here’s how.
FTP / File Manager #
By utilizing the panel file manager, or using an FTP client, you can disable a faulty WordPress plugin. Simply navigate to <your site’s WordPress document root>, click on the “wp-content” folder, click on “plugins” and locate the plugin you want to disable. To disable, simply rename the plugin folder to “plugin-name.d”
For example, if know.cynderhost.com was hosted at /public_html/know.cynderhost.com, I would go to /public_html/know.cynderhost.com/wp-content/plugins, and rename the plugin I want to disable.
![](https://know.cynderhost.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/image-7.png)
To re-enable the plugin, simply rename the folder back to it’s original name.
Disabling All Plugins #
You can also disable all your plugins temporarily at once by renamed the “plugins” folder to something else, like “plugins.d”
The plugins folder is located in the /wp-content folder.
Renaming back the folder will re-enable your plugins.
WordPress Toolkit #
Both shared and high-performance hosting users have access to “WordPress Manager” which allows you to configure various WordPress settings directly from the panel.
![](https://know.cynderhost.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/image-8.png)
![](https://know.cynderhost.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/image-9.png)
From there, click on the “Plugins” tab for the site in question, and toggle the “state” of the plugins:
![](https://know.cynderhost.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/image-10.png)
Plugins can be turned on, or off.