How to enable and disable Maintenance mode in WordPress

Posted on February 7th, 2023

Maintenance mode is a crucial aspect of website management, especially for WordPress sites. It allows you to perform updates, backups, and other maintenance tasks without disturbing the live website. Enabling maintenance mode temporarily makes your site unavailable to the public and displays a “maintenance in progress” message. In this post, we’ll walk you through the process of enabling and disabling maintenance mode in WordPress. Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced user, you’ll find this guide useful. Let’s get started!

We will use one of the free plugins available on the WordPress repository. The plugin name is WP Maintenance mode, and anyone can download it from WordPress’s official website. Before we dive into the tutorial, let’s understand the WP Maintenance mode plugin and its features.

WP Maintenance Mode

The WordPress Maintenance Mode plugin was created in response to the growing need for site owners to be able to put their WordPress site into maintenance mode. At the same time, they work on updates or other changes. This plugin allows you to easily create a maintenance mode page that will let your visitors know that your site is currently down for maintenance. You can customise the message on the page, and you can even choose to display a countdown timer to let your visitors know when the site will be back up. The WordPress Maintenance Mode plugin is a must-have for any WordPress site owner who wants to be able to put their site into maintenance mode without having to worry about losing any traffic. Here you can see all the features of this fantastic free plugin.

Features

  • The WP Maintenance mode plugin is one of the free plugins that allow you to put your WordPress site into maintenance mode.
  • This plugin also allows you to customise the maintenance mode page and add different types of content as per your choice.
  • WP Maintenance mode plugin provides a neat and clean user interface that allows you to configure when the maintenance mode page is displayed.
  • This plugin also comes with user configuration features that exclude and include certain types of users from seeing the maintenance mode page.
  • One of the most impressive features of this plugin is it provides a basic answering bot that can answer the visitor’s questions automatically.
  • This plugin allows you to display a countdown timer with a customised message on the maintenance mode page.

WP Maintenance Mode plugin helps you to put your WordPress site into maintenance mode. This mode can be used when you are updating your site or if you want to disable your site for a short time. When your site is in maintenance mode, visitors will see a message that your site is down for maintenance. So follow the steps from here. Firstly we will install and activate the plugin on a WordPress Website. Then we will learn all the features and configuration of this specific plugin.

Install the WP Maintenance Mode plugin

Step 1: First, Goto your WordPress website Admin area and Log in with the Username and Password.

Step 2: Then, Hover the cursor on the Plugins tab section and click on the Add New option, as seen in the image below. From this section, You can add new plugins to your WordPress site.

Step 3: Find the Search Field and Search for WP Maintenance Mode on the Add New plugin page.

Step 4: Then, find the right plugin from the search results. After finding the right plugin, click on the Install Now button, as seen in the image below.

Step 5: After successful installation, the Install now button will be replaced with the Activate button. Click on the Activate button to activate the plugin, as seen in the image below. Now we can configure the plugin as per our requirements.

Now, the WP maintenance mode & coming soon plugin is ready for use. Let’s see how to configure the maintenance mode for your WordPress site.

Configure the WP Maintenance Mode plugin

Step 1: Goto the WordPress website’s Admin area dashboard and hover your cursor on the Settings tab section. Then, click on the WP Maintenance Mode, as seen in the image below.

Step 2: Here, on the Configuration page of the WP Maintenance Mode plugin, we have four different tabs. Click on the first tab to be called a General tab. This tab contains all the basic configurations, as seen in the image below.

Step 3: On this tab section, the first option is the Status of the Maintenance Mode, which contains two radio button options called Activated and Deactivated. Click the Activated radio button to activate the Maintenance Mode on your WordPress Website.

Step 4: Just below the Status option, we have two options: The backend Role and the Frontend Role. Click on the field and select the user type as per your requirement. You authorise the specific types of users to log in by choosing the types of users. See the below image as a reference.

  • Backend Role: This option will help you authorise specific types of users that can log in through the website’s backend.
  • Frontend Role: This option will help you authorise specific types of users that can log in through the website’s frontend.

Step 5: Then, Scroll down and Click on the button, as you can see in the image below.

Note: You can keep all the fields or use them per your requirements. There are options available that help you to improve the quality, but those are not mandatory.

Step 6: Next, let’s learn how we can use the design features of this plugin. Click on the Design tab section at the top of the page.

Step 7: On the design tab, the first drop-down available as a Select page will allow you to choose the page as a Maintenance Mode. You can edit that page content by clicking on the edit page button. See the below image as a reference.

Step 8: Now, choose a pre-design template this WP Maintenance Mode plugin provides. Click on the drop-down of All Template and select the category.

Step 9: Then, hover the cursor on the Selected Template and click on the Import Template, as you can see in the image below.

Step 10: Log out and go to the website to see the changes.

Preview: The image below shows that the Template is a Maintenance page. You can edit the page as per your requirement. Remember, we must log out from the WordPress Dashboard to see the changes.

Conclusion

WP Maintenance Mode plugin also has some fantastic modules and answering bot features. You can find dozens of plugins with paid plans to provide bot and timer facilities. However, this plugin is a free plugin that still allows us to add excellent eye-catching features. These kinds of features can keep your regular traffic. You can use this plugin as per your configurations and requirements. We just discussed the plugin and all the free features. Then we also learned how we can install, configure and design the maintenance mode plugin on a WordPress website.

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