WordPress Sites that are up for an extended period will tend to get cluttered if not from the fronted, then certainly on the backend. Although these types of issues may not appear visible to your visitors when content is concerned, sooner or later they will feel it when the loading time on the sites starts going up and that is something nobody wants.
That’s why it’s so important to keep your site “clean”, keeping active only those apps you’re regularly using. Just by reading this it already sounds like a chore and most of us will tend to delay the investable as long as we can.
Unfortunately, a time will come when your site is barely keeping it together and the only way out is by starting a new. Just hearing the phrase “restarting a site” is probably enough to send shivers down your spine, but it really is something you can’t avoid and is using a WordPress site as your platform, then you’re in luck.
WP Reset is a plugin that lets you reset a site on your terms making it a much less scary action.
How to Reset WordPress Blog Using a Plugin
How Resetting Works
Now once you’ve decided to reset your site and will use WP Reset do so, you’ll probably want to know how exactly it’s done. If you’ve ever formatted a disk, then you have a pretty good idea of the process. All of your personal data will be deleted, permanently.
That means all posts, pages, custom post types, comments, media entries, and users are gone. In that, all default WP database tables, as well as all custom database tables that have the same “wp_” prefix are also deleted.
If you are in any way able it’s recommended, for obvious reason, to make backups, but if you’re unable to for any reason, then, unfortunately, you’re out of luck.
You know what’s deleted, but how about what remains. Well, pretty much all the stuff you’ve uploaded stays. All media files remain (but aren’t listed under media), as well as integration such as plugins and theme uploads.
Aside from the uploads, your “basic site characteristics” remain – site title, WordPress address, site address, site language, and visibility settings. This all means you’ll have a relatively healthy starting point for building your site back up again.
How your site “behaves” after the reset is incorporated into the resetting settings themselves.
These are just basic option of how everything will boot up after the reset is completed. You can view the list of boot options in the image below. No matter what options you choose, the site will revert to the original “root” user but will keep the current password.
Partial Reset
Perhaps your site isn’t that far gone that you need to wipe it completely, but only certain parts of it. If you’re using WP Reset, you’ll have that option.
There are certain data and content groups that can be singled out and cleaned up without it affecting the rest of the site. The same rules apply just as in the complete reset, so every action is permanent and if you haven’t made a manual backup copy all data will be lost. Data that can be individually worked on includes:
- Transients – all transient data is deleted (includes expired, non-expired transients and orphaned transient timeout entries)
- Upload data – all uploaded files in the C:\folder\htdocs\wp\wp-content\uploads are deleted
- Theme options – delete the options and mods for all themes, active and inactive
- Theme deletion – deletes all themes, leaving only the default WordPress theme available
- Plugins – all plugins except WP Reset are deleted
- Custom tables – all custom tables with the wp_ prefix are deleted, but all core tables and those without the wp_ prefix remain (you can see an example of affected tables below)
- .htaccess file – deletes the .htaccess file located in C:/folder/htdocs/wp/.htaccess
Keeping track of Changes After Reset
You’ve probably noticed that throughout the article we’ve mentioned several times that there is no automatic backup function implemented. There are however database snapshots. These can prove very useful if you’re using them in the right context.
Namely, WP Reset enables you to create snapshots of standard and custom WP database tables.
Keep in mind that these tables only and no files are saved. The best way to take advantage of this feature is while testing for results of changes done by resetting your site fully or partially.
To gain the optimal performance you can track all the changes that happen for specific plugins you deem problematic.
After viewing the changes, you can then restore the database and move on with further testing if needed. The great thing is that you can create multiple snapshots and none of them will affect the others. Snapshots can easily be seen as a “preview mode” of sorts where you can make everything that comes to mind without any consequences.
Summary
Don’t let the straightforwardness fool you. WP Reset may have a single core function, but the ways it gives you the options to use said functions are varied enough to never leave you wanting more.
All of the features that are present are logically put into place and work both individually and as a whole.
Most of the time you won’t have a need for a plugin like this, but since it revolves over such a delicate matter it’s prudent to abide by that old saying – it’s better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.
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