How to Remove WooCommerce from WordPress: A Comprehensive Guide
WooCommerce is one of the most popular plugins for transforming a WordPress site into a fully functional e-commerce platform. However, there may come a time when you need to remove WooCommerce from WordPress for various reasons such as changing business strategies or switching to a different e-commerce solution. This guide will walk you through the process step by step, ensuring you can safely and effectively remove WooCommerce without compromising your website’s integrity.
Why Remove WooCommerce?
Before diving into the removal process, it’s essential to understand why you might want to remove WooCommerce from your WordPress site. Here are a few common reasons:
- **Switching to a Different Platform**: You might be moving to another e-commerce platform that better suits your business needs.
- **Simplifying Your Website**: If your primary focus shifts away from e-commerce, you might want to streamline your website by removing unnecessary plugins.
- **Performance Check out this post: How To Change Product Page In Woocommerce Issues**: In some cases, WooCommerce might be bogging down your website’s performance if Check out this post: How To Get Order Details In Woocommerce not properly optimized.
- Use plugins like UpdraftPlus or BackupBuddy to create a full backup of your site.
- Navigate to WooCommerce > Reports > Export to download your data, including orders, customers, and products.
- Use a database management tool like phpMyAdmin to delete WooCommerce tables. Common tables include:
- `wp_woocommerce_*`
- `wp_wc_*`
- `wp_order_*`
Preparing to Remove WooCommerce
Backup Your Website
Before making any significant changes, it’s crucial to backup your WordPress site. This ensures that you can easily restore your website if anything goes wrong during the removal process.
Export WooCommerce Data
If you plan to keep your e-commerce data for future use, it’s wise to export it before removing WooCommerce.
Steps to Remove WooCommerce from WordPress
Step 1: Deactivate WooCommerce
The first step is to deactivate the WooCommerce plugin.
1. Go to your WordPress dashboard.
2. Navigate to Plugins > Installed Plugins.
3. Locate WooCommerce and click on Deactivate.
Step 2: Delete WooCommerce
After deactivating, the next step is to delete the plugin.
1. In the same Installed Plugins page, find WooCommerce.
2. Click on Delete to remove it from your site.
Step 3: Remove WooCommerce Data
Deleting the plugin doesn’t remove all data associated with WooCommerce. To thoroughly remove WooCommerce data, follow these steps:
#### Automatically Remove Data
WooCommerce provides an option to remove all data when uninstalling.
1. Navigate to WooCommerce > Settings.
2. Click on the Advanced tab.
3. Scroll to the bottom and enable the option Remove WooCommerce Data on Uninstall.
4. Now, uninstall the WooCommerce plugin again to remove all data.
#### Manually Remove Data
If you prefer to manually remove data:
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS wp_woocommerce_sessions; DROP TABLE IF EXISTS wp_woocommerce_api_keys; DROP TABLE IF EXISTS wp_woocommerce_attribute_taxonomies; DROP TABLE IF EXISTS wp_woocommerce_downloadable_product_permissions; DROP TABLE IF EXISTS wp_woocommerce_order_items; DROP TABLE IF EXISTS wp_woocommerce_order_itemmeta; DROP TABLE IF EXISTS wp_woocommerce_tax_rates; DROP TABLE IF EXISTS wp_woocommerce_tax_rate_locations;
Step 4: Remove WooCommerce Shortcodes and Pages
WooCommerce creates several pages and shortcodes. To clean your site:
- Delete WooCommerce pages such as Shop, Cart, Checkout, and My Account from **Pages** in your WordPress dashboard.
- Search your content for WooCommerce shortcodes and remove them.
Step 5: Clean Up WooCommerce Files
To ensure no WooCommerce files remain:
- Access your website files via FTP or a file manager.
- Check and delete any leftover WooCommerce files or folders in the `wp-content/plugins/` directory.
Final Thoughts
Removing WooCommerce from WordPress is a straightforward process if you follow these steps carefully. By ensuring you backup your site and export important data, you can avoid any potential hiccups during the removal. Explore this article on How To Get More Traffic To Your Woocommerce Store Whether you’re simplifying your website or transitioning to a new platform, this guide provides the necessary steps to effectively remove WooCommerce from your WordPress site. Remember, cleaning up all data and files associated with WooCommerce will help maintain your site’s performance and security.