How to Reset WordPress Default Settings on Your Site

Do you want to reset WordPress back to the default settings? This snippet comes in handy for theme developers so they could test out things and easily reset back to default settings.

Instructions:

All you have to do is add this code to your theme’s functions.php file or in a site-specific plugin:

WARNING: Be sure to remove it after settings are reset.

function set_theme_defaults() {
    $o = array(
        'avatar_default'            => 'blank',
        'avatar_rating'             => 'G',
        'category_base'             => '/thema',
        'comment_max_links'         => 0,
        'comments_per_page'         => 0,
        'date_format'               => 'd.m.Y',
        'default_ping_status'       => 'closed',
        'default_post_edit_rows'    => 30,
        'links_updated_date_format' => 'j. F Y, H:i',
        'permalink_structure'       => '/%year%/%postname%/',
        'rss_language'              => 'de',
        'timezone_string'           => 'Etc/GMT-1',
        'use_smilies'               => 0,
    );

    foreach ( $o as $k => $v ){update_option($k, $v);}

    // Delete dummy post and comment.
    wp_delete_post(1, TRUE);
    wp_delete_comment(1);
    return;
}
register_activation_hook(__FILE__, 'set_theme_defaults');

Note: If this is your first time adding code snippets in WordPress, then please refer to our guide on how to properly copy / paste code snippets in WordPress, so you don’t accidentally break your site.

If you liked this code snippet, please consider checking out our other articles on the site like: Best WordPress Page Builders (Compared).