Knowledge Base
MilesWeb / WordPress FAQ

How to enable maintenance mode in WordPress?

Approx. read time : 3 min

This article is a guide on how you can enable the maintenance mode in WordPress, and also how you can customize the page that WordPress displays when it is in the maintenance mode.

# Enabling the WordPress maintenance mode :

By default, users will receive the following message when a WordPress site is in maintenance mode :

Briefly unavailable for scheduled maintenance. Check back in a minute.

Whenever WordPress does an update, the site needs maintenance and this is the most common scenario.

There are some different situations also, like during development and testing, you need to manually enable maintenance mode. To do this, perform the following steps :

1. Log in to your account via cPanel or SSH.

2. Use command prompt or cPanel File Manager and go to the directory where you have installed WordPress.

3. Now, by using the preferred text editor, create a file named as .maintenance.

Note: Ensure that the file name starts with a period (.) otherwise this procedure won’t work.

4. Copy and paste the following code into the .maintenance file :

 <?php

    $upgrading = time();

?>

5. Save all the changes to the .maintenance file.

6. Maintenance mode now gets activated for your site. If you wish to restore the normal site operation, then delete the .maintenance file.

# Customize the WordPress maintenance mode message

As we learned previously that WordPress displays a message ” Briefly unavailable for scheduled maintenance” when your site is in maintenance mode. But still, you can customize the page displayed by WordPress, when it is in maintenance mode.

Perform the following steps to do so :

1. With the use of SSH or cPanel File Manager, navigate to the wp-content subdirectory in the directory, where you have installed WordPress.

2. By using a text editor, create a file named as maintenance.php.

3. In this maintenance.php file, add the HTML or PHP code that you want to use when WordPress is in maintenance mode. After this, WordPress will use the maitenance.php file instead of displaying the default message.

Also Read :

1) How to add Google Analytics to WordPress with and without using plugin?

2) How to fix blank pages in WordPress?

With an interest in doing something creative daily, Sonam works as a Digital Marketing Executive. She likes to write technical blogs related to web hosting, digital marketing, and other IT topics. She also likes to spend her leisure time on social media to find different strategies for client engagement.

Trusted By Thousands of Clients & Big Businesses

We highly appreciate the kind and stellar feedback we receive from our customers. Delivering the best is our goal! MilesWeb is rated Excellent out of 5 based on reviews. Read more reviews.

Excellent
Based on reviews
2 hours ago
Perfect and Valuable Server + ...
I am using MilesWeb Servers, The main thing which I getting are continuous support over everything w...
Gunjan Makwana
4 hours ago
Milesweb is superb Hosting pro...
Milesweb is superb Hosting provider ever, their Support team is amazing!!!...
Abhishek Singh
15 hours ago
Great support in great timing...
We need urgent assistance on changes in a primary domain on our client's Cpanel accounts and reached...
Riyaju Deen
21 hours ago
Best Website Hosting platform ...
I was new on MilesWeb. And needed help on multiple areas from setting up to getting started with cre...
Harshada
1 days ago
Very quick and helpful assista...
Very quick and helpful assistance. Support person listened properly and provided a nice solution....
Narendra
1 days ago
the team is very supportive th...
the team is very supportive though at times effort needs to be made to make understand the problem s...
Suree Sharma
1 days ago
I am using miles web for 3plus...
I am using miles web for 3plus years, very quick and perfect support by the team, they helped me man...
Sri Raghav
2 days ago
The service is good...
The service is good. They are answering with patience and doing the needful as soon as possible....
MR
2 days ago
Perfect and Valuable Server + ...
I am using MilesWeb Servers, The main thing which I getting are continuous support over everything w...
Gunjan Makwana
3 days ago
Very quick and helpful assista...
Very quick and helpful assistance. Support person listened properly and provided a nice solution....
Narendra
4 days ago
positively helped me with find...
positively helped me with finding insecure content on my website causing SSL to not work properly on...
Thaviraj Junglee
4 days ago
Exceptional support, Truly Pra...
I had opted for the basic wordpress hosting plan as I intended to experiment with various plug-ins. ...
Aseem Chandna