One of our users lately inquired about how to uninstall WordPress and also reinstall it. When all other troubleshooting methods have failed, reinstalling WordPress can help. We will show you how else to uninstall and also reinstall WordPress securely without having to lose your data as well as SEO in this article.
Is It Necessary to Reinstall WordPress on a Regular Basis?
It’s never a good idea to start with reinstalling WordPress. The majority of common WordPress errors can be easily fixed, saving you the trouble of having to reinstall WordPress.
Follow the instructions in our WordPress troubleshooting guide if you can’t figure out what’s causing the problem. It will assist you in identifying the problem and determining a course of action.
If your WordPress site has been hacked, you can use the tips in our guide on how to clean a hacked WordPress site.
If all else fails, the last resort is to uninstall and reinstall WordPress from scratch.
Step 0: Make a Back-Up Plan
Before you do anything, make a complete backup of your current WordPress site. This can be done with the help of a WordPress backup plugin. Ensure that your backup files are stored on your computer or in a cloud storage service such as Google Drive or Dropbox.
We won’t be reinstalling WordPress from this backup, but it’s good to have in case something goes wrong.
Step 1: Create a WordPress Export File to Export WordPress Content
The first step is to create a WordPress export file to export your WordPress content. Your posts, pages, categories, tags, and comments will all be saved in this file.
You can leave out data created by WordPress plugins when restoring a WordPress site using this export file.
This is how a WordPress export file is made.
Go to the Tools » Export page after logging into your WordPress admin area. Click the ‘Download Export File’ button after selecting all content.
If your website has a large number of registered users, you should consider exporting them as well.
Step 2: Save the wp-content folder to your computer.
The /wp-content/ folder on your website contains all of your WordPress themes, plugins, images, and uploads.
Let’s save this information to your computer so that you can reinstall WordPress later.
Use an FTP client or cPanel’s File Manager to connect to your WordPress site. Choose the wp-content file and then save it to your computer when you’ve connected.
You can now uninstall WordPress after downloading the wp-content folder.
Step 3: Remove WordPress from its current location.
To uninstall WordPress, use an FTP client or cPanel’s File Manager to connect to your WordPress site. After that, you must delete all WordPress files.
Your WordPress database does not need to be deleted. You can create as many databases and usernames as you need with most WordPress hosting companies.
You can create a new database with a new username and password instead of deleting the existing one.
To make a new database, sign into your cPanel account and select MySQL Databases from the drop-down menu.
This will take you to the page where you can create a new database.
To begin, give your new database a name and click the Create Database button.
After that, scroll down and add a new user to the ‘MySQL Users’ section. You must first create a username and password before clicking the ‘Create User’ button.
Now you must add the user to the database you previously created. Select the username and database you created earlier from the ‘Add user to database’ section.
To continue, click the ‘Add’ button.
When you reinstall WordPress, your new database is ready to use.
Let’s see how to reinstall WordPress and restore your website now that you’ve successfully uninstalled it.
Step 4: Install WordPress for the first time
You must first download WordPress from the WordPress.org website.
You must unzip the WordPress download file after it has been downloaded.
Within it, you’ll find a WordPress folder. You’ll see all of the WordPress files if you open the WordPress folder.
Now you should use an FTP client to upload these documents to your website.
Go ahead and visit your website after you’ve uploaded the WordPress files. WordPress will now prompt you for your database credentials.
You must enter the database’s name, username, and password that you previously created. Most likely, localhost will be your host information.
To continue, click the submit button when you’ve finished filling out the information.
WordPress will make an attempt to connect to your database at this point. It will display a success message upon a successful connection. To continue, simply click the ‘Run Install’ button.
WordPress will then ask you for information about your site, such as the title, description, admin email address, and password in the next step.
To proceed, click the ‘Install WordPress’ button after filling out the necessary information.
The installation of WordPress is now completed. Proceed to the WordPress admin area and log in with the username and password you created earlier.
You’ll need to delete the default content once you’ve logged in to WordPress.
Delete the ‘Hello World’ post from your Posts section. Remove the default comment from the ‘Comments’ section. Finally, go to Pages and remove the sample page from the list.
You’ve just finished reinstalling WordPress from scratch.
Let’s get started on restoring your content now.
Step 5: Restore the theme, images, and uploads
To begin, go to the wp-content folder you downloaded earlier and restore your uploads, images, and theme.
To do so, use an FTP client to connect to your website and also navigate to the /wp-content/ file.
Then, from your computer, select the /wp-content/uploads/ folder and upload it to your website.
You can now upload any changes you’ve made to your WordPress theme or child theme files. The /wp-content/themes/ folder contains your theme folders.
Step 6: Import Information
Let’s get your posts, pages, categories, tags, and other content into the system.
To begin, navigate to Tools » Import and then to the ‘Install Now’ link under WordPress.
The WordPress importer will then be downloaded and installed. Then, on the ‘Run Importer link, you must click.
This will take you to the WordPress importer page, where you should select the XML file you downloaded in step 1 by clicking the ‘Choose File’ button.
To continue, select the ‘Upload file and import’ option.
WordPress will prompt you to choose whether you want to create new authors and assign posts to them, or if you want to assign all posts to your current user account.
You can assign all posts to yourself if it’s a WordPress site with only one author. Otherwise, WordPress will import the authors if you do nothing.
Make sure the ‘Import Attachments’ box is checked as well. This enables WordPress to properly import images from your /wp-content/uploads/ folder into the WordPress media library.
To continue, click Submit.
WordPress will now begin importing content from the XML file into your newly installed WordPress.
When you’re done, go to your website and look at the content you’ve created.
Step 7: Add Plugins to WordPress (One by One)
You can now proceed to installing plugins after successfully importing content to your reinstalled WordPress site.
You’ll have to install and activate each plugin individually. It’s possible that you’ll have to manually configure plugins in order to change their settings.
That’s it; you’ve uninstalled and reinstalled WordPress successfully. You can now go through your website and re-configure things like your navigation menus, sidebar widgets, contact form, and more to how they were before.
We hope this tutorial on how to uninstall and reinstall WordPress was helpful.
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