How to Reset a WordPress Website with the WP Reset Plugin

WP RESET quickly resets the site’s database to the default installation values without modifying any files. It deletes all customizations and content, or just chosen parts like theme settings.

While not very useful to end users, this plugin is a favorite for WordPress developers.

As stated in the description, the purpose of this plugin is to reset the WordPress database. Files will remain untouched: your themes, plugins and uploads will remain in their respective folders.

WP Reset can be installed from the WordPress Dashboard.

Once activated, you will see a new page in the Tools section called WP Reset.

To reset your installation, scroll to the bottom of the page and find the Site Reset section.

Before I reset this installation, let’s create a snapshot, which is basically a backup.

This installation doesn’t have much content, so it takes only a few seconds to complete.

All snapshots can be found in the Snapshots tab. For each snapshot there are several actions: you can compare the database tables, restore, download or delete the snapshot.

Back in the Reset tab, at the bottom of the page, I usually check all 3 options, type in the word reset and click on Reset Site.

This popup will ask for yet another confirmation. Press the big red button to wipe out all the content.

Unless you have a snapshot or a different database backup, there is no turning back after this.

After you press the button, in a few seconds you will see the Dashboard again, with all the original welcome messages and notifications.

If you have themes or plugins that need a license key, you will have to type them in again.

WP Reset comes with a few more tools in the free version of the plugin.

Open the Tools tab.

You can delete all Theme Options, Transients, the Cache created by popular plugins and the local data.

You can also delete all themes, plugins and all uploads.

It goes without saying that you shouldn’t do any of this on a live website. If I were you, I wouldn’t even keep this plugin on a live website, even if it’s deactivated.

So if you ever need to use it, do it and then deactivate or even delete it. There is no real reason to keep such a dangerous tool easily available in the WordPress dashboard.