How To Reset Your WordPress Site using a Plugin

If you have been running a WordPress site for a while and there is a lot of outdated and unnecessary stuff on there, you may want to have a fresh start with your website.

Maybe you even want to create an entirely new website and keep only your domain name and theme layout.

Whatever your reasons for wanting to start fresh maybe, the easiest way to start over is by using a plugin.

You can set everything up from the beginning and enjoy a tabula rasa website, even if you’re not a developer or an advanced WordPress user.

Turning over a new WordPress leaf

Perhaps you have been running a WordPress site for years. There are hundreds of posts on there, including thousands of images, comments and bits of media.

But, what about when you want a clean slate – to start all over again and try to do something completely different with your site?

You can use a plugin that will delete all posts, site pages, custom post types, comments from users, user profiles and media entries.

If you want, you can do exactly the opposite – leave your posts and pages and wipe your plugins and theme settings.

Depending on your needs and preferences, you can easily take over control of your website and reset it in just a few clicks.

How to delete all content on WordPress in a single click

Let’s look at the first-case scenario that we have mentioned. So, if you want to delete all your posts, pages, custom page types, comments and users, follow these steps:

• Install and activate the WP Reset plugin.
• After you have activated the plugin, you will be able to find it in the Dashboard: find the WP Reset in your WP-Admin area under ‘Tools’.
  
• When you enter the WP Reset plugin dashboard, you will find all the info about the scope of the one-click reset for your website.
  In this section, you can precisely see which data will remain on your website and which will be deleted forever. Make sure that you are well aware of what the reset entails because it’s non-reversible.
• Before you click on Reset and turn over a new leaf, first you have to take care of the post-reset settings. These are basically settings that determine what’s going to happen to your WordPress interface after you click on the Reset button.
  First, you will be able to choose whether you want to reactivate the theme that you are using right now or go with a new one.

  If you choose not to go forward with your current theme, upon reset you will be reverted back to the WordPress default theme.

  The second option determines whether the WP Reset plugin will wait for you on the other side. If you want your WP Reset plugin to be activated again after the reset is carried out, check this option.

  Lastly, you will have the option to reactivate all currently active plugins. You should choose this option if your goal is to reset content, but you want your plugins to remain intact.

  If you want to leave some of your plugins on the new, reset website, you can uncheck this option and simply activate those that you want manually.

• Time to click on that scary Reset button! Well, as you will soon see, it’s actually not that scary.
  If you have read through the instructions, you know exactly what you can expect on the new version of your website. Scroll to the bottom of the ‘Reset’ section of the plugin to find the button.
  

As a confirmation, you will have to type in ‘reset’ before you click on the ‘Reset WordPress’ button.

What happens after I click the Reset WordPress button?

You will have to go through another confirmation point because the action is irreversible and you cannot undo it.

Everything will be reset according to your preferences and the post-reset settings you have specified.

The plugin will then restore your website’s identity: title, WP address, site address, language, search engine visibility and current user’s profile.

After this is done, you will be logged out from your Admin area and automatically logged back into your new Admin dashboard.
Congrats – you’ve managed to reset all the posts, comments and media entries on your WordPress site.

Now, let’s take a look at the second-case scenario: when you actually want posts and media to be the only thing that’s left on the site.

Maybe you want to revamp your site or change the UX altogether. If so, you can do that by resetting the theme settings or resetting plugins.

Here’s how you do that:

1. The WP Reset plugin is divided into sections. Next, to the master Reset of the website’s content, you will also find various options for custom resetting of the site’s segments.
   In this section, you will find the options for making the following custom reset actions:
   – Delete Transients – for deleting expired and non-expired transients.
   – Clean Uploads Folder – deletes all uploads, including all media files.
   – Reset Theme Options – switches back to default mode for all themes that you have installed, not just the one that’s currently active.
   – Delete Themes – deletes all installed themes in your library, including the currently active one.
   – Delete Plugins – deletes all plugins except WP Reset.
   – Empty or Delete Custom Tables – deletes wp_ custom tables.
   – Delete .htaccess File.
2. Visit the Reset section for the option you want to choose. Each of these settings has its own reset button, so you can do a simple one-click reset and start fresh instantly.
   

As you can see all over the plugin, it’s highly emphasized that you need to be sure that you want to do this: there is no undo option.

WP Reset plugin does not create any backups for the files, content and data you’re resetting, so when you actually do it, what’s done is done.

So, before you click on the Reset button, make sure you are aware of what’s going to happen and that you really want to do this.

Thank you for reading!

Feel free to comment below if you face any difficulties while resetting WordPress theme.

Author: Ravi Verma

He is a digital marketer and creator of Freaky SEO. He enjoys working with words, numbers and the complexities of search engines and their working. You can connect with him on Linkedin or tweet @ digitalverma. Do you have excellent ideas to share with netizens? Come write for us.