How to Turn On Maintenance Mode in WordPress

Doing maintenance is an essential part of managing your WordPress blog. Maintenance helps you keep your website updated and void of errors. However, there will be changes that you’ll be making on your website that you’ll need to inform your readers that your site is currently unavailable. To do that, you’ll have to know how to turn on Maintenance Mode in WordPress. This mode will let your readers know that there are big changes to look forward to with your website.

So what is considered as big changes that you’ll have to turn your maintenance mode on? Posting new blogs or editing minor details, or changing your themes and plugins are not counted. Big changes are things like, rebranding your website, installing a plugin that will add a new feature on your website, troubleshooting, or doing changes on a popular post you have. When you do changes like these, it is much better to take down your website temporarily, rather than letting your readers encounter errors or missing pages while they’re visiting.

There are several ways to put your WordPress website into maintenance mode. We have some examples below.

How to Turn on Maintenance Mode in WordPress

Use of Code

If your website is going to be down for a short time, you can just use the default maintenance mode of WordPress. This is so that you would not have to go through the trouble of customizing a maintenance mode page for your website.

To do this, go to your dashboard and select Theme Editor under Appearance.

When the page loads, locate Theme Functions or functions.php

Copy the code you see inside the box and save it for the meantime. Afterwards, go back to the Theme Functions and add this code that puts your WordPress in default maintenance mode at the bottom of the file.

function wp_maintenance_mode() { if (!current_user_can('edit_themes') || !is_user_logged_in()) { wp_die('<h1>Under Maintenance</h1><br />Website under planned maintenance. Please check back later.'); } } add_action('get_header', 'wp_maintenance_mode');

Hit “Update File” and you’re done. To check if it’s working, you need to be logged out of your account and check your site. To deactivate the maintenance mode, just remove the code that you added and save the file.

Use of Plugins

If your website is going to be down for quite some time, you can use a Plugin that lets you customize a maintenance page. This method lets you put more information regarding your maintenance, where they can get updates, or where they can reach out to you for the meantime.

The first thing you have to do is to look for a maintenance plugin. You can do this easily just by typing “maintenance” in the search bar in the Plugins menu. You have several plugins to choose from. If you just need a simple and easy to use maintenance plugin, you can use Maintenance by WP Maintenance. You also have free plugins like Under Construction by WebFactory Ltd, but these free plugins also have limitations. You won’t be able to put your logo on it or customize some elements. If you want something that is fully customizable, you can use one of the popular maintenance plugins – Coming Soon Page, Under Construction & Maintenance Mode by SeedProd.

If you’re using SeedProd’s plugin, here’s how to turn your maintenance mode on:

The first thing you have to do is go to Settings > Coming Soon Pro. This is where you will select what kind of page you’ll display on your WordPress: Disabled, Coming Soon Mode, Maintenance Mode, Redirect Mode. In this case, we’ll use Maintenance Mode.

Image Credit: WPBeginner

After clicking on “Save All Changes”, hit the “Edit Coming Soon/Maintenance Page” button where it will direct you to a page full of the plugin’s ready-made templates.

Image Credit: SeedProd

After selecting a theme for your maintenance page, you can now customize by adding your logo, changing the background, colors, add contact forms, and more. This plugin also has an email marketing integration feature where you can put up a signup form for your readers so that they can stay updated.