If you’re having problems with your WordPress site, one possible solution is to reinstall WordPress to make sure the problem isn’t caused by any corrupted files. If done right, this ensures that you have clean basic WordPress files without affecting your existing content. Or, if you want to restart your WordPress site from a completely blank slate, you may want to completely bombard your existing WordPress site and reinstall a fresh copy of WordPress to start from scratch.
Whether you want to completely reinstall WordPress or just reinstall core WordPress software without affecting your existing content, we’ve got you covered in this post.
The only thing we ask is that you make a backup before following any of these methods. Although the first two methods are geared towards helping you reinstall WordPress without losing any content, it’s always a good idea to have a fresh backup in case something goes wrong! If you’re a Kinsta customer, you can quickly back up WordPress with a single click.
Once you have your freshly taken backup in hand, click below to skip to the tutorial of your choice:
How to Reinstall WordPress from WordPress Dashboard While Preserving Existing Content How to manually reinstall WordPress via FTP while preserving existing content How to manually reinstall WordPress
- via WP-CLI while preserving existing content
- WordPress and start from a
- How to reinstall themes or plugins
How to completely reinstall
100% blank slate
How to Reinstall WordPress
While Preserving
Existing Content
The following three methods show you how to reinstall the main WordPress software without affecting any of the existing ones
:
- Content
- theme
- plugins
On a slightly more technical level, that means none of these methods will affect your WordPress site:
- wp-config database.php Archive
- WP-Content Folder
Each method only reinstalls
the core WordPress software. How to Reinstall Core WordPress Software Automatically from Your Control Panel If you
just want to reinstall core WordPress files, you can do so directly from your WordPress dashboard (if you can’t access your WordPress dashboard, you need to skip to the next section to know how to do the same via FTP!).
It’s surprisingly simple. In your WordPress dashboard, go to Dashboard → Updates in the sidebar. Then, click the button to reinstall now:
<img src="https://kinsta.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/how-to-reinstall-wordpress-1.png" alt="WordPress Dashboard Updates Area
Once you click the button, WordPress will automatically download and reinstall the latest version of WordPress. Basically, you’re just manually rerunning the normal update process WordPress does when you update WordPress from your dashboard.
It may take a few seconds, but once the process is finished, you should have a fresh copy of WordPress installed.
How to Reinstall Core WordPress Software
via FTP
If you can’t access your WordPress dashboard due to an error (or just prefer to work via FTP), you can perform a similar process via FTP. Basically, you’ll manually duplicate what WordPress would do for you in the previous section.
Here is the process in a nutshell
: Download the latest version of WordPress
- Extract the ZIP file Upload
- everything except the /wp-content/
folder
Let’s go over each step in a little more detail…
First, head to WordPress.org and download the latest version of WordPress:
After the download is complete, extract the entire contents of the ZIP file to your computer. Then delete the wp-content folder.
<img src="https://kinsta.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Delete-wp-content.png" alt="Delete wp-content
Once you’ve done that, connect to your host via FTP and upload the remaining files to the folder where you originally installed WordPress. Usually, this is your root folder called something like public or public_html.
When you start uploading the files, your FTP program should show you a message saying that something similar to the destination file already exists. When that happens, make sure to select the Overwrite option and continue:
<img src="https://kinsta.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/how-to-reinstall-wordpress-4.png" alt="Upload remaining files via FTP
Because you already deleted the wp-content , this will overwrite all core WordPress files without affecting any of your themes or plugins. Once the upload is finished, you should have a newly installed copy of the main WordPress files and hopefully things run smoothly.
How to Reinstall WordPress
Core via WP-CLI
You can also reinstall WordPress core using WP-CLI. WP-CLI is a command-line tool for managing many, many aspects of a WordPress installation. You can add/remove users, posts, categories, insert test data, find and replace in the database, and much more. The following command would download WordPress core without the default themes and plugins.
wp core download -skip-content -force
Read more about WP-CLI commands
.
How to Completely Uninstall and Reinstall WordPress
This method will not preserve any of your existing content. Don’t follow it unless you want to completely erase your existing WordPress site. Basically, you’ll need:
- Delete all your
- Install a fresh copy of WordPress using the desired method
existing WordPress files
If it sounds simple, that’s because it is! To delete all your existing files, you can connect to your site via FTP or, if your host uses cPanel, through the cPanel File Manager.
Select all files in the folder where you installed WordPress and delete them:
<img src="https://kinsta.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/how-to-reinstall-wordpress-5.png" alt="Delete current WordPress files
You may also want to delete the existing
database used for your WordPress site for the sake of cleanup, although you can use a new database even if you skip deleting the existing database. If your host uses cPanel, you can delete your existing database from the MySQL Databases area
in cPanel: <img src="https://kinsta.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/how-to-reinstall-wordpress-6.png" alt="Delete database in
Otherwise, you can use phpMyAdmin to drop the database:
Once you’ve cleaned up your existing WordPress files, all you need to do is install a fresh copy of WordPress just like you would a new site. Depending on your host, you can do this:
Through
- a one-click installer like Softaculous or Fantastico
- Manually using the famous 5-minute WordPress installation
<img src="https://kinsta.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/how-to-reinstall-wordpress-8.png" alt="Reinstall WordPress via your preferred method
Once you’re done installing a fresh copy of WordPress, you can start building your new site from a completely blank slate. If you can’t log into your WordPress dashboard, read our guide on how you can change your password.
How
to Reinstall WordPress Themes and Plugins
While the above methods deal specifically with core WordPress software, you may also come across situations where you need to reinstall specific themes or plugins on your site. Fortunately, this is quite simple. This is the safest way to do it:
first, connect to your site via FTP and navigate to your wp-content folder. Then, depending on whether you want to reinstall a theme or a plugin, navigate to the themes or plugins folder:
<img src="https://kinsta.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/reinstall-wordpress-themes-plugins-1.png" alt="Find wp-content folder
folder
Browse to the folder for the plugin or theme you want to reinstall. Then, rename that folder and add “_old” to the end of the original filename:
<img src="https://kinsta.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/reinstall-wordpress-themes-plugins-2.png" alt="Rename folder for desired plugin or theme
or theme
At this point, you can install a fresh copy of the theme or add-in as you normally would. It should work the same as before and retain all its previous settings and settings.
Once you verify that everything works properly with the reinstalled version, you can go back to your FTP program and delete the
old folder: <img src="https://kinsta.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/reinstall-wordpress-themes-plugins-3.png" alt="Delete old folder
In the end, it’s pretty simple to reinstall WordPress. If you just want to reinstall the core WordPress software, you can do so by
: Using
- built-in WordPress
- update functionality
- Re-upload the last copy of WordPress to your server, excluding the wp-content folder and the wp-config-sample file.php file.
And if you want to start completely from scratch, all you need to do is delete your existing one:
- Database
- files
and install a fresh copy of WordPress via whichever method you prefer. Finally, to reinstall a specific theme or plugin, all you need to do is rename the existing folder via FTP and install a fresh copy as you normally would.
Suggested reading: How to install WordPress locally.
