How to Put WordPress in Maintenance Mode (Step-by-Step) 

Want to learn how to put WordPress in maintenance mode?

WordPress maintenance mode lets you put up a maintenance page for users instead of a broken website. That means you can perform maintenance and troubleshooting tasks while the people that work on your website still have access.

This tutorial will show you how to put WordPress in maintenance mode step-by-step. We’ll also show you how to make your maintenance page design more helpful and user-friendly.

Video Tutorial

Often, it creates a page or a message to substitute your main website. That will allow you to add a time frame for when your main website is live again.

WordPress uses the wp_maintenance function and creates a .maintenance file using the default WordPress maintenance message. WordPress deletes the file when maintenance is over, and your site should work as expected.

There are many ways to put your WordPress site in maintenance mode. Many tutorials tell you to edit your .htaccess update file, which is hard for beginners. However, we’ll show you 2 easier ways to create a maintenance page in WordPress:

The 2 methods below start with the easiest step-by-step solution to enable maintenance mode and customize your maintenance page. After, we’ll offer a more complicated manual way.

Click any of the methods below to jump right in:

1. How to Put WordPress in Maintenance Mode using SeedProd

First, you should install a WordPress maintenance mode plugin. There are several options in the WordPress plugin repository.

We’ll use the SeedProd Pro landing page and website builder plugin for this article.

SeedProd is the best WordPress page builder plugin with coming soon and maintenance mode functionality.

It comes with a growing library of stunning theme and landing page templates and guaranteed support to set up a maintenance page quickly.

SeedProd also allows you to create other types of customizable pages, including:

• Coming soon landing pages to hide your site while you work on it privately.
• Maintenance mode pages to restrict access when you’re making small changes.
• Custom 404 landing pages for broken links and posts or moved pages.
• WordPress thank you pages to provide a better user experience for your audience.
• Squeeze pages to help grow your email list.
• Sales splash pages to sell your products or services and increase revenue.
• Webinar landing pages to increase registrations.
• Custom WordPress login pages to welcome your users.

You can also gather leads and subscribers while your site’s down for maintenance by adding modules like opt-in forms, subscription forms, giveaways, and contact forms to your maintenance page so visitors can sign up for notifications when your site’s back up.

Many people get confused between the Coming Soon mode and Maintenance mode. Coming soon pages are generally used on new websites that are not live yet and are still under construction.

On the other hand, you should use maintenance mode on established sites if they’re inactive due to maintenance. For instance, switching your WordPress theme or other significant changes can take a while.

So let’s check out how to use this plugin to enable WordPress maintenance mode.

If you’d prefer to follow the written instructions, keep reading.

Step 1: Install the SeedProd Plugin

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 for installing a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation of SeedProd, it will ask you to verify your license key via the SeedProd plugin’s settings page. You can find your license key in the Downloads section of your SeedProd account. Paste the key in the blank field you see on your screen.

Once your license is verified, click the Create Your First Page Button further down the screen. You’ll see the SeedProd dashboard, where you can activate all the different page modes and add new landing pages.

Let’s now move on to creating your maintenance mode page in WordPress.

Step 2: Set Up a WordPress Maintenance Mode Page

At the top of the SeedProd dashboard, you’ll see 4 different sections:

• Coming Soon Mode – This option adds a coming soon page to your website.
• Maintenance Mode – This lets you activate maintenance mode.
• 404 Page – Display a custom 404 landing page on your WordPress website.
• Login Page – Create a custom WordPress login page.

You’ll need the second option to create a maintenance page on your website. So go ahead and click the Set Up a Maintenance Mode Page option to get started.

SeedProd offers you tons of design options for your maintenance mode landing page. You can either build your page from scratch or use a ready-made theme from the library of landing page templates.

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

Just hover your mouse over any maintenance page design template you prefer and click the tick icon to launch it in the visual frontend page builder.

You’ll see the template on the right side of the drag-and-drop page builder. You can edit every template part by using the options on your left.

Step 3: Customize Your Maintenance Mode Page

To change the maintenance mode message, click the message on the page and edit it using the inline editor.

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.

It’s also possible to change the content order by dragging any page element (called page blocks) from one place to another.

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.

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

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.

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.

The great thing about SeedProd is that you don’t have to stick with the same page layout you chose initially. You can change every element to make your maintenance page look exactly how you want. It’s even possible to add custom HTML for any specific design tweaks you need.

Imagine your audience doesn’t know why your site is down, but you’d like to help answer their questions to avoid many support tickets. The easiest way would be to add a FAQ section to your maintenance screen.

Since the template we chose doesn’t include a FAQ section, you’ll have to insert one yourself. But it won’t be too difficult.

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.

Customizing your maintenance page background image is just as easy. Just click the gear icon in the bottom left of your screen to see SeedProd’s global settings.

Here you can add global fonts, and background colors and change your maintenance page background. You can even add a full-width background video or slideshow.

In addition, you can add any custom CSS for more styling options.

Remember to click the Save button and save settings before moving on.

Step 4: Configure Your Maintenance Page Settings

Next, we’ll show you how to connect your email marketing service and configure your landing page settings.

Connecting Your Email Service Provider

You can connect your email marketing service to your maintenance page to grow your list while you work behind the scenes.

First, click the Optin Form block from the left-hand panel, then drag it onto your maintenance page.

Then click it to customize the different options, including which form fields to display, your button styling options, alignment, and more.

After that, click the Connect tab at the top of your page to integrate an email marketing service provider.

SeedProd integrates with several popular marketing services, including Constant Contact, Drip, GetResponse, and more, to help you grow your list. It also allows you to set up Google Analytics Recaptcha for spam protection and connect to thousands of apps via Zapier.

To integrate your email list, click any option on the page and click Connect. Then follow the on-screen instructions to authorize your account, as shown in the screenshot below.

Don’t forget to save changes when you’re finished.

Landing Page Settings

Now it’s time to configure your maintenance page settings. Click the Page Settings option at the top of your screen to see the settings page.

In the General settings area, you can give your page a new name, change the status from draft to published or vice versa, and enable Isolation Mode. Isolation Mode stops 2 scripts from running to avoid any WordPress theme or plugin conflicts.

The Access Control section lets you create a bypass URL to grant access to specific people. It’s also possible to give access based on the user role logged-in users have.

You can set the page to bypass users with specific cookie settings. However, this may not work on sites with specific caching settings.

The SEO and Analytics sections help you manage your pages’ search optimization and traffic statistics. While in the scripts section, you can add custom scripts in your header, body, and footer areas, such as your Facebook tracking pixel.

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

Now that your page is ready, it’s time to check the responsiveness before you hit publish.

Check Your Page is Mobile Friendly

By checking your page’s responsiveness, you can ensure your maintenance page looks stunning across all devices.

The option for checking responsiveness is available by clicking the mobile preview icon on the bottom-left side of your page in the Design tab.

If you click on Desktop, you will see how it appears on other screens.

Similarly, clicking on Mobile can check its appearance on smaller screens like mobile phones.

Step 5: Publish Your WordPress Maintenance Mode Page

Now you can hit the publish button so that your page goes live. To do that, click the dropdown arrow next to the Save button.

Then, go ahead and click Publish.

SeedProd will then notify you that your maintenance page is live. To see how your live site looks, click the See Live Page button.

The page below is just an example. You can develop much better-looking maintenance mode pages for your WordPress site using your creativity.

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.

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.

You can use this process to put your website in maintenance mode whenever you want to take down your site for a quick fix.

How to Turn off WordPress Maintenance Mode in SeedProd

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.

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

Related: How to Fix Getting Stuck in Maintenance Mode

2. How to Put WordPress in Maintenance Mode using WP Maintenance Mode Plugin

Another way to put WordPress in maintenance mode is to use the free WP Maintenance Mode plugin. This is a great solution if you only need to create a simple maintenance page. That said, this method uses the default WordPress editor, so it isn’t as powerful or as customizable as SeedProd’s page builder.

To get started, install and activate the WP Maintenance Mode plugin.

After activating the plugin, you can choose either a coming soon or a maintenance template. Because we’re making a maintenance page, select the “Website is under maintenance” template and click the Continue button.

Now you’ll have the option to join the WP Maintenance plugin email list. If you don’t want these updates, click the “I’ll skip for now, thanks” link.

The plugin will now create a simple maintenance mode page using the built-in template. To see it, click the View Page button.

When you view the page, it will open in the WordPress post editor. This allows you to edit your maintenance page as you would with any other WordPress page or post.

The template has several placeholders that you’ll want to edit, such as the social media links. To link the social profiles to your own pages, click them and type your URL into the box that appears.

When you’re happy with your changes, click the Update button to save your changes.

Now let’s configure your Maintenance page settings. Simply go to Settings » WP Maintenance Mode from your WordPress dashboard and click the General tab.

To ensure you don’t affect your WordPress SEO during maintenance mode, it’s a good idea to enable the ‘Bypass for Search Bots’ option, allowing search engine crawlers to bypass the maintenance page and access your site.

This is because, by default, search engine bots cannot see your site during maintenance mode, and this can negatively impact your search engine rankings.

If you’re the website admin, you can access your WordPress website and dashboard when it’s in maintenance mode. However, you may want to give access to other users, such as authors and editors.

To do that, open the Backend dropdown box and choose a user role from the list.

Alternatively, you can choose the Frontend Role options to give access to your public-facing site.

Like SeedProd, you can exclude pages from maintenance mode so users can still access them. You can do that by adding the URL slug to the Exclude box.

It’s worth exploring the additional settings available, most of which are easy to understand. Once you have configured maintenance mode to your satisfaction, click on the “Save settings” button to save your changes.

Activating maintenance mode can be done at any time by going to the “General” tab and selecting the “Activated” radio button.

Next, scroll to the bottom of the page and click the Save Settings button. To see how your maintenance page looks, open the page in an incognito window.

When maintenance is over, you can go back to the settings page, click the General tab, and select the Deactivated option. Once you save your changes, maintenance mode will no longer be active on your website.

3. How to Put WordPress in Maintenance Mode Manually

We have an alternative solution for website owners who don’t wish to use a WordPress maintenance mode plugin.

This method requires you to edit your WordPress functions.php file to activate maintenance mode, so if you’re not familiar or comfortable with editing WordPress files, use the more straightforward method above.

Before trying this, we recommend you back up your website before continuing to prevent breaking your site. Contact your WordPress hosting provider for help with that.

You can also edit the file manually or use the file manager.

Follow these instructions to activate WordPress’s default maintenance page when updating themes, plugins, or your core WordPress files.

Navigate to Appearance » Theme Editor from your WordPress admin area and look for your functions.php file.

Then, add the following code snippet to the end of the file:

// Activate WordPress Maintenance Mode
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');

You can customize your message by changing the text between the quotes on line 4.

The drawback of using this method is you won’t have access to any of the lead-generating features you’ll get when using a plugin like SeedProd, such as:

• Optin forms to grow your email list
• Social profile buttons for more followers
• Powerful WordPress contact forms
• Social sharing buttons to increase brand awareness

WordPress Maintenance Mode Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

We hope this article helped you learn how to put WordPress in maintenance mode. All that’s left is to dive in and create a powerful maintenance page that helps secure more leads and grow your business.

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