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how to put WordPress in maintenance mode

How to Put WordPress in Maintenance Mode (The Easy Way) 

Written By: author image Stacey Corrin
author image Stacey Corrin
Stacey has been writing about WordPress and digital marketing for over 10 years and on other topics for much longer. Alongside this, she's fascinated with web design, user experience, and SEO.
     Reviewed By: Turner John
reviewer image Turner John
John Turner is the co-founder of SeedProd. He has over 20+ years of business and development experience and his plugins have been downloaded over 25 million times.

Want to put your WordPress website in maintenance mode?

With maintenance mode, you can temporarily disable your website and clearly inform visitors when it will return. You can also control who can access your site while you work on it.

In this guide, I’ll show you how to eaisly put WordPress in maintenance mode step-by-step.

How to Put WordPress in Maintenance Mode:

When Should I Enable Maintenance Mode in WordPress?

Turn on maintenance mode in WordPress when updating themes, plugins, WordPress itself, or while working on your site before it goes live. It’s also helpful for private edits, big changes to your layout, fixing code, or recovering from security issues. This keeps unfinished content hidden from search engines, protecting your SEO.

maintenance mode example

Different Ways to Enable Maintenance Mode

While I’ll focus on using the easiest method in this guide, there are several ways to put WordPress in maintenance mode:

MethodProsConsBest For
Maintenance Mode Plugins• Easy to use
• Can make it look how you want
• Has extra features
• Might slow down your site a bit
• Might not work well with other plugins
People who aren’t tech experts, longer maintenance periods
With Code• You control everything
• No extra plugins needed
• You need to know PHP coding
• It’s harder to set up
Advanced users and developers
SeedProd
(Recommended)
• Easy to use
• Lots of options to make it look nice
• Can do other things like “coming soon” pages
• You need to pay for the best featuresAnyone who wants something easy to use but still powerful

Steps to Put WordPress in Maintenance Mode

While the most popular option is to use a dedicated WordPress maintenance mode plugin, they’re not all easy to use. That’s why, after trying the options, I’ll use SeedProd for this tutorial.

SeedProd is a website and landing page builder with built-in maintenance mode features, which have saved me many hours of work.

SeedProd Drag and Drop WordPress website builder

It also has pre-made maintenance mode templates and a visual drag-and-drop editor. This allows you to customize your maintenance page without writing code or hiring a developer.

Let’s jump right into the steps on how to put WordPress in maintenance mode:

1. Install and Activate SeedProd

First, click here to get started with SeedProd. Then, install and activate the plugin in your WordPress dashboard.

If you need help with this step, check out this guide on installing SeedProd.

2. Create a WordPress Maintenance Page & Choose a Template

After activating the plugin, go to SeedProd » Landing Pages and click the Set Up a Maintenance Mode Page option.

Set up a WordPress maintenance mode page

SeedProd offers many design options for your maintenance page. You can either build your page from scratch or use a ready-made landing page template.

After clicking the button to set up your page, you’ll see various templates.

Choose a WordPress maintenance mode template

Hover your mouse over any maintenance page design you prefer and click the checkmark icon to launch it in the visual frontend page builder.

visual WordPress maintenance mode page builder

3. Customize Your Maintenance Mode Template

Now, you can customize the content of your maintenance page template to align it with your brand. For example, to change the maintenance mode message, click the message on the page and edit it using the inline editor.

WordPress Maintenance mode page message

Here, you can enter a custom maintenance message explaining the downtime to your visitors. Clicking the Advanced tab in the left-hand panel will allow you to change the color, font, spacing, and text-shadow settings.

You can also change the content order by dragging any page element (called page blocks) from one place to another.

WordPress maintenance mode builder

SeedProd also makes it easy to add extra elements to your page, including contact forms, signup forms, social buttons, and more. All you need is to choose the page block from the left-hand panel and drag it into position on your page.

For example, you can add a countdown timer that shows how long it is until maintenance is over. You’ll find that block in the Advanced Blocks section. Click the countdown timer icon and drag the blog onto your live page preview.

Add a countdown clock to your maintenance page in wordpress

Now click the timer on your page to view the different customization settings.

customize your maintenance mode countdown timer

You can select the timer type, end date and time, and size, and even add a custom message and CSS.

The countdown timer block also comes with several pre-made block templates you can implement with a single click. Just select the Templates tab and pick one you like.

choose a template for your maintenance mode countdown timer block

Repeat this process for all the elements you want to change on your maintenance page.

Almost all of the different page blocks come with templates, while the advanced blocks can help generate leads for your page, which include:

  • Giveaways – Add a RafflePress online contest to your page to attract leads while you’re under maintenance.
  • Contact Form – Connect a WPForms contact form to your maintenance page so users can get in touch.
  • Optin Form – Allow users to sign up for your newsletter. It also includes a checkbox to keep your form GDPR compliant.
  • Social Profiles – Get more social media followers with prominent social buttons and social media icons.
  • Star Rating – Increase trust by showing customer reviews and positive ratings.

Besides offering tons of page blocks, SeedProd has various pre-made sections you can add to your page with a few clicks. Just click the Sections tab in the left-hand panel and find the section you need.

To add a FAQ section, click the FAQ heading and choose one of the layouts available by clicking the Plus icon.

SeedProd will automatically add the section to the bottom of your maintenance mode landing page. Then, all you need to do is customize it with your content.

Insert frequently asked questions onto your maintenance mode page

When you’re happy with your maintenance page design, click the Save button in the top-right corner of the screen.

Publish your WordPress maintenance mode page

4. Enable WordPress Maintenance Mode

The final step is to turn on maintenance mode for your WordPress website. Go to SeedProd » Pages from your WordPress admin area and find the maintenance mode section.

Enable maintenance mode page in seedprod

Then click the Inactive toggle to activate the WordPress site in maintenance mode.

Logged-in users will usually be able to access the backend, just like you did before. But your visitors will see the maintenance page you just created with SeedProd. Even better, your page won’t be affected if you update WordPress.

example how to put WordPress in maintenance mode

5. Control Website Access for Logged in Users

By default, your maintenance mode page is only visible to visitors who aren’t logged in. Your existing users, such as members, customers, or clients, can still access their accounts without interruption.

However, you can give specific users access during maintenance. Simply edit your maintenance page, then click the Page Settings tab at the top.

SeedProd landing page settings

SeedProd provides options for maintaining access to your site during maintenance mode. Enabling ‘Exclude Default’ allows visitors to access standard login and account-related pages (login, admin, dashboard, account), preventing lockouts.

maintenance mode access control settings

The ‘Bypass Cookie’ toggle allows access to users with specific browser cookies, although caching plugins may affect this.

For direct control over access, you can select specific user roles. To do so, click ‘Add Role’ and choose from the available options.

Add role in maintenance mode

When you’re happy with your settings, click Save.

6. Exclude Pages from Maintenance Mode

SeedProd also offers control over maintenance mode access by allowing you to specify which pages are included or excluded. This is useful if, for instance, you have a custom login page or want to keep your contact form accessible for support inquiries.

To manage this, go to SeedProd’s ‘Include/Exclude URLs’ settings. Select either ‘Include URLs’ or ‘Exclude URLs’ and enter the desired page links.

Excluding urls in maintenance mode

When you’re happy with how the maintenance page is set up, click the ‘Save’ button to save your updated access control settings.

Bonus: How to Turn off WordPress Maintenance Mode

When you have finished updating and maintaining your website, you can disable maintenance mode so the public can reaccess your website.

You can turn off your maintenance mode by heading to your WordPress admin area and accessing the SeedProd dashboard.

Then, it’s as simple as clicking the toggle from the Active to Inactive position.

how to turn off wordpress maintenance mode

Maintenance is now disabled and deactivated, and anyone can access your website.

WordPress Maintenance Mode FAQs

I receive many questions from our readers on this topic. Below, I’ve answered some of the most common questions about putting WordPress in maintenance mode.

My site is stuck in maintenance mode; what should I do?
If your WordPress site is stuck in maintenance mode, access your site’s root directory through FTP, locate the .maintenance file, and delete it. This file, left over after an update, often causes maintenance mode to persist. Removing it should restore your site.
How do I put WordPress in maintenance mode without a plugin?
Enable WordPress maintenance mode without a plugin by creating a .maintenance file in your site’s root directory. Add this PHP snippet inside the file:

<?php $upgrading = time(); ?>

This activates maintenance mode manually. For full instructions, refer to an online guide if needed.
How do I put my WordPress site under construction?
Put your WordPress site “under construction” by activating a maintenance mode plugin with a “Coming Soon” or “Under Construction” template. These templates can display a countdown, contact details, or previews of your upcoming site. This helps keep visitors informed while your site is being developed.
Does maintenance mode affect all pages of my website?
Yes, maintenance mode usually covers all pages of your website, displaying a single placeholder page to visitors. However, administrators can still access and edit the site when logged in.
Will maintenance mode affect my SEO ranking?
Short-term maintenance mode won’t harm your SEO, as search engines recognize occasional site updates. However, extended maintenance can impact rankings, so keep downtime brief to maintain SEO health.
What is WordPress maintenance mode?
WordPress maintenance mode temporarily hides your website, showing visitors a “maintenance message” while updates are in progress. This message typically informs users that the site will be back soon, keeping them informed during downtime.

Next, More WordPress Maintenance Mode Tips

I hope this article helped you learn how to put WordPress in maintenance mode. Now, all that’s left is to create a powerful maintenance page that secures more leads and grows your business.

You might also find the following related guides helpful:

Thanks for reading! We’d love to hear your thoughts, so please feel free to leave a comment with any questions and feedback.

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author avatar
Stacey Corrin Writer
Stacey has been writing about WordPress and digital marketing for over 10 years and on other topics for much longer. Alongside this, she's fascinated with web design, user experience, and SEO.

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Comments

  1. the most importen thing is: it must simply work! and dont waste time of users which such a simply thing like a maintenance site. Its not possible to change the big background picture. the preview links doesn`t work. very very sad. bon voyage :)

    1. Hi Marcel, we’re sorry to hear that you’re having trouble with your maintenance page. We can assure you that changing your background image and previewing your design is possible with SeedProd. However, with the manual code method, that won’t be possible. Please check out our maintenance mode documentation, or if you need more help, do feel free to submit a support ticket.

  2. Hello! I have followed the instructions (I think! LOL) and my wordpress dashboard has the orange “maintenance mode active” info at the top, BUT anyone who checks my website, says they don’t see the nice Maint Mode page…. they only see the construction debris on my website ;) Not sure what to check next? Thank you!

  3. Hi there, Loving your product, however I’m on the free version, and can only see the maintenance page on mobile view… I do not wish for others to view the website in desktop as I haven’t even launched it yet! Anyway this can be taken down and/or also replaced with a maintenance page? Thanks!

Comments are closed.