Running a website can be a daunting task, but having the right help by your side can cut back on the hard work. And as far as WordPress is concerned, the right help comes in the shape of plugins.
Plugins make your website more responsive and faster and improve it overall if the right ones find their way into your repository. You need to invest time and find out which plugins you need to provide a better user experience, reduce your loading times, create backups, add more security layers, and make it easier to update and install.
One of those useful plugins you should consider having is WP Reset, and we will dedicate this review to explain what this tool is all about and how your website can benefit from it.
What is WP Reset?
WP Reset is probably one of the most important plugins to have in your arsenal, considering its versatility and functionality. In short, it helps you reset your site to previous settings with just one click, which makes it an excellent tool for speeding up testing and debugging processes because you can quickly restore settings to their previous state.
Performing all kinds of experiments on your website is standard practice and making a few blunders is a part of the process. But if mistakes do happen, that’s where WP Reset steps in to save the day. You can easily use it with Cloudways’ WordPress hosting server.
If you had backed up your site before you did the changes (hopefully, you do this regularly), then you can go back to the settings before the update with just one click. It’s really easy!
There are two versions of WP Reset, free and premium. In short, the premium version has more features than the free one, and we will review all the features below.
The plugin is frequently tested and updated. It has over 300,000 installations with positive reviews, so you don’t need to be worried that it will slow down your site.
WP Reset Plugin Installation Process
To install the plugin, go to your WP admin site, go to Plugins and click on Add New. Search for WP Reset in the wordpress.com repository and click on download.
Activate the plugin and open the settings page under the Tools menu.
If this doesn’t work for some reason, you can upload it manually. unzip it, and upload to /wp-content/plugins/. Open your WP admins site, go to Plugins and click on activate. Then you can open the plugin’s admin page under the Tools menu.
WP Reset Plugin Features
This plugin comes with a range of useful features, with some of them available in the free version, but you will need to consider switching to one of the premium plans to have all of them.
We will just list some of the features and explain each in detail below:
- Undo action
- 1-click install
- Remove demo data
- White label option
- Nuclear reset
- Automatic snapshots
- The cloud storage
You can do a lot from your dashboard. This is where you can manage your licenses and sites, and you can complete additional purchases, download plugins, check and update your profile information, and lots more.
This plugin can be your safety net, and you can use it to create automatic snapshots of your site and its databases before you make some new changes or updates on your site. That way, you will have a safety point to restore your site in case something goes wrong.
The plugin can also reset your site’s database to default values without modifying any of the files. It will delete customizations and content, but you can also choose specific parts you wish to restore (such as your theme).
Nuclear Resetting Process
Resetting will delete all your posts, pages, comments, users, and media entries. It will delete default WP database tables, but it will not delete media files, plugins, themes, uploads, WP address, site address, site language, and search engine visibility settings. The reset process usually takes one to two seconds, but if you have a large amount of data, it could take up to ten seconds.
You should know that this is not a backup plugin, nor can it replace conventional backup plugins. Instead, it works alongside them to provide you with better protection.
A snapshot will show you what changes a plugin made to your database (modified, deleted, or created).
Clicking on the reset button will log you out, log you back in and take you to your admin dashboard and you can choose to reactive the plugin in the post-reset options. Also, we recommend creating snapshots or a full backup before clicking on reset. You can undo the reset (if you did a snapshot before). To restore the settings, just click on restore the snapshot.
Emergency Recovery Tool
Emergency recovery Tools is a standalone script that is independent of any WP files and always works. It can disable or enable all plugins; it can disable the current theme, check all core files to see if some are missing or damaged, create a new admin user without logging in, and edit the site and WP address.
To enable it, go to Support on your plugin’s admin page and highlight the link to download it; you see below that the emergency scrip is enabled, and the script will be installed.
Partial reset tools
There are several different options for doing a partial reset of some elements of your site.
- Delete transients: deletes all transient related database entries, including expired and non-expired transients
- Delete uploads: deletes all files and folder in the /uploads/ folder
- Delete plugins: deletes all plugins, except for WP Reset
- Reset theme options: resets all options for all themes that use the WP theme mods API
- Delete themes: deletes all themes
- Empty or delete custom tables: empties or deleted all custom database tables
- Delete .htaccess file: deletes the .htaccess file
Database and automatic snapshots
With this option, you can copy all WP database tables saved in the currently used database.
Go to your plugin’s admin page and click on Create snapshot at the top to create a snapshot. You will see a new pop-up that says Create a new snapshot; enter its name or description, and click on Create. which takes less than 10 seconds.’
Another great thing is that you can create as many snapshots as you need, and this feature comes in the free version. As we will mention later, you can offload your snapshots to a cloud, whether WP Cloud, Dropbox, or Google Drive.
You can also create automatic snapshots to be taken of your site.
Collections
If you have a list of plugins you need to install, you can create a collection and install them with one click, potentially saving you hours of work. You can create as many collections as you want, and you can even store them in the cloud.
To create collections, go to the Collections section, and under New collection, click on Install collection.
Remove demo data
By utilizing this feature, you can remove any demo data quickly so it will not take up space, and you can even click the nuclear reset option if you need to make sure everything is gone. This includes all files, database entries, and tables.
To remove your demo data, go to Tools on your plugin’s admin page, and there you will see a list of actions you can take with this feature. Choose the one you wish to do and click on delete.
White label option
If you want to shift towards the branding customizations, you can also enable the white label option so all the logos and links will disappear, and you can make the plugin seem like part of your website. This adds a bit more customization to your site, just so the overall user experience and brand identity are consistent.
Also, you can have access to the WP Reset Cloud, where you can store your collections and snapshots. It is easy to transfer your files and use them as storage that is always available. You can also access it from your WP Reset dashboard.
Managing your licenses
Moreover, you can even move your licenses between sites. Once you deactivate the plugin on one site, the license will go back to your license pool, from where you can activate it on another site. You can manage your license in your WP Reset Dashboard, a central place to manage snapshots and collections for your site.
WP-CLI support feature
WP Reset comes with full WP-CLI support, which is available via wp help reset. It currently supports these commands:
- WP reset reset
- WP reset version
- WP reset delete
- WP reset snapshots
To access these, just type in “wp reset” in your shell to see the list of commands.
Multisite support feature
The multisite feature is still being adjusted, but it has reached stability for the users. Since the developer team is currently working on the feature, you should be careful while using it – resetting the main site isn’t advised, but resetting the subsites is good to go.
The plugin can be used by anyone who has a website, even if you are a beginner – In fact, it is one of the most beginner-friendly plugins available. Don’t be worried and think that you need to have coding knowledge to use it. It is straightforward and simple to use.
Also, you cannot accidentally delete your site as the plugin has several fail-safe mechanisms. You will need to confirm all destructive actions and double-confirm the reset actions in two different ways, so a misclick isn’t a threat while using it.
If you require additional assistance, you can always reach out to the plugin support or check out the forum and look for your problem’s questions and answers. If there are none, you can easily create new ones.
WP Reset Plugin Pricing
The free plan gives you access to the following features: site reset, reset theme option, delete transients, delete themes and plugins, clean uploads folder, empty custom tables, delete .htaccess files, manually create snapshots, and you have access to community support. With premium plans, you have access to all of these features and a lot more.
There are three different premium plans you can get. Right now, there is a 50% off launch discount, so it’s better to make up your mind on which plan you want quickly.
The personal plan costs $39 per year, and you get a license for 1 site with 1 WPR cloud site license. You have access to over 25 tools, snapshots, and plugin collections, as well as the Emergency Recovery Script.
The team plan is the most popular at $79 per year. You get 5 site licenses, 5 WPR cloud site licenses, and access to over 25 tools, with all the features and a license manager.
The agency plan costs $149 per year, and you get it for 100 sites and20 WPR cloud site licenses. You also have access to all features, and you get the white label option.
In case you don’t like the plugin, there is a 7-day refund guarantee.
Summary
Running your blogs requires a hefty amount of dedication and time, but the technicalities become much easier to handle if you know how to utilize the proper tools.
With a tool like WP Reset, you can test and debug tasks without fear of making unwanted changes or that a faulty plugin will compromise your achievements, leaving your site squeaky clean and perfectly optimized. The only thing left to do is to add it to your repository and open your new chapter of digital success.
Note: This article was published in collaboration with WebFactory LTD.
Muhammad Muzamil
Muhammad Muzamil is a Digital Marketing Specialist at Cloudways. He's Passionate about digging websites from the depths of search indexes. His journey has made him a hardened digital marketer with a special love for cutting-edge digital marketing tactics. In his free time, he likes to watch a series. feel free to discuss anything! ~ Hope you’ll enjoy it.
