How to put WordPress into maintenance mode

This guide explains how to hide your WordPress site behind a simple holding page while you make changes, and how to get it back if it gets stuck showing “Briefly unavailable for scheduled maintenance”.

When to use maintenance mode

Maintenance mode is useful when visitors could see a half finished page or place an order during a change. Good examples are a redesign, a theme switch, moving content around, or a large plugin update on a shop.

For bigger changes, a staging copy is usually better than taking the live site offline. You work on the copy and push it live when it’s ready. See how to create a staging site with WP Toolkit.

Option 1: WP Toolkit

WP Toolkit in cPanel can switch a site into maintenance mode without installing anything in WordPress. The exact layout depends on the WP Toolkit version, so the names below may differ a little on your account.

1. Log in to cPanel and click WP Toolkit.
2. Find your site in the list and open it.
3. Look for a Maintenance mode switch on the site’s card or dashboard and turn it on.
4. If there’s a link to change the maintenance page, you can edit the heading and text visitors see.

To finish, turn the same switch off. If you can’t see a maintenance option, use a plugin instead.

Option 2: A maintenance plugin

Plugins give you more control over the page, such as your logo, a message and an expected return time.

1. In WordPress, go to Plugins, then Add New Plugin.
2. Search for “maintenance mode”. Pick a well reviewed plugin that’s been updated recently.
3. Click Install Now, then Activate.
4. Open the plugin’s settings page. It’s usually under Settings or Tools, or has its own menu item.
5. Write your message, then switch the mode on and save.

Most plugins let logged in administrators see the real site while everyone else sees the holding page. Check this by opening your site in a private browser window, where you’re not logged in.

When you’ve finished, switch the mode off in the plugin. You can deactivate the plugin until you next need it.

What search engines see

A proper maintenance page returns HTTP status code 503, which means “temporarily unavailable”. Google treats a 503 as a short break and keeps your pages in its index. It comes back later to check again.

A page that returns 200, the normal “OK” code, tells Google the holding page is your real content. If that stays up for long, your listings can suffer. Many plugins have a setting for this, often labelled 503 or Search engine friendly. Turn it on.

Keep maintenance mode short. A few hours does no harm. Several days of 503s can start to affect how often Google visits and how your pages rank. See what website error codes mean for more on status codes.

Stuck in maintenance mode

During core, plugin and theme updates, WordPress creates its own temporary maintenance mode. It puts a file called .maintenance in your WordPress folder and shows the message “Briefly unavailable for scheduled maintenance. Check back in a minute.” When the update finishes, it deletes the file.

If an update is interrupted, for example by closing the browser tab or a timeout, the file stays behind and the message doesn’t go away. To fix it:

1. In cPanel, open File Manager.
2. Click Settings at the top right, tick Show Hidden Files (dotfiles) and click Save.
3. Go to the folder WordPress is installed in, usually public_html.
4. Find the file named .maintenance, right click it and choose Delete.
5. Reload your site.

The site should come back straight away. Then go to Dashboard, then Updates in WordPress and run the update again, as the interrupted one may not have completed.

If it doesn’t work

• The site is still showing the holding page after you turned it off. Clear your browser cache, and purge Cloudflare if you use it. See how to use Cloudflare with your hosting.
• You can’t log in to switch the plugin off. Disable the plugin from cPanel by renaming its folder. See how to disable WordPress plugins without logging in.
• The site broke after removing .maintenance. The interrupted update may have left files half replaced. See how to fix the white screen of death, or restore from a backup taken before the update with JetBackup.

Still stuck? Open a support ticket and we’ll help.