Manage WordPress using WP-CLI

WP-CLI, also known as the wp command, is a command-line utility for managing WordPress.

See the WP-CLI commands documentation for a full list of available commands.

To use the wp command, SSH into your server as an app’s system user and change your current directory to the app’s web root directory.

cd apps/APPNAME/public

From the app’s public/ directory, use the wp commands shown on this page.

Note

The wp command will use your server’s default PHP CLI version. To use a different PHP version with the wp command, you can change your server’s PHP CLI version or use wp commands for specific PHP versions.

WP-CLI with WordPress Multisite

For apps using WordPress Multisite, check the available flags for a wp command before running a command. For some commands, you may need to provide the --network flag to specify which Multisite network the command should operate on.

Manage WordPress users

Use the wp user command to manage WordPress user accounts.

See the wp user documentation for all available subcommands.

List users

See the wp user list documentation for all available flags.

wp user list

Create a user

See the wp user create documentation for all available flags.

wp user create USERNAME EMAIL --role=administrator

A random password will be generated and displayed in the command’s output.

Change a user’s password

See the wp user update documentation for all available flags.

wp user update USERNAME --user_pass=PASSWORD

Change a user’s role

See the wp user update documentation for all available flags.

wp user update USERNAME --role=ROLE

The available roles are:

• administrator
• editor
• author
• contributor
• subscriber

Delete a user

See the wp user delete documentation for all available flags.

Delete a user and all of their posts.

wp user delete USERNAME

To delete a user without deleting their posts, use the --reassign flag to transfer the user’s posts to another user.

wp user delete USERNAME --reassign=OTHER_USERNAME

Manage plugins

Use the wp plugin command to manage WordPress plugins.

See the wp plugin documentation for all available subcommands.

List installed plugins

See the wp plugin list documentation for all available flags.

wp plugin list

Install a plugin

See the wp plugin install documentation for all available flags.

Note

A plugin’s ID can be found in the URL of the plugin’s page in the WordPress plugin directory.

wp plugin install PLUGIN_ID

Activate a plugin

See the wp plugin activate documentation for all available flags.

wp plugin activate PLUGIN_ID

Update plugins

See the wp plugin update documentation for all available flags.

Update a single plugin.

wp plugin update PLUGIN_ID

Update all plugins.

wp plugin update --all

Deactivate plugins

See the wp plugin deactivate documentation for all available flags.

Deactivate one plugin.

wp plugin deactivate PLUGIN_ID

Deactivate all plugins.

wp plugin deactivate --all

Delete a plugin

See the wp plugin delete documentation for all available flags.

wp plugin delete PLUGIN_ID

Manage themes

Use the wp themes command to manage WordPress themes.

See the wp themes documentation for all available subcommands.

List installed themes

See the wp theme list documentation for all available flags.

wp theme list

Install a theme

Note

A theme’s ID can be found in the URL of the theme’s page in the WordPress theme directory.

See the wp theme install documentation for all available flags.

wp theme install THEME_ID

Activate a theme

See the wp theme activate documentation for all available flags.

wp theme activate THEME_ID

Update themes

See the wp theme update documentation for all available flags.

Update a theme.

wp theme update THEME_ID

Update all themes.

wp theme update --all

Deactivate a theme

See the wp theme deactivate documentation for all available flags.

wp theme deactivate THEME_ID

Delete a theme

See the wp theme delete documentation for all available flags.

wp theme delete THEME_ID

Search and replace

Use the wp search-replace command to replace contents of the WordPress database.

See the wp search-replace documentation for all available flags.

Caution

The wp search-replace command will alter the contents of the WordPress app’s database. Before using this command, you may want to take a snapshot of your server at your server provider or make a backup of the WordPress app’s database.

Use the --dry-run flag to see what the command would change without making changes to the database.

wp search-replace "SEARCH_STRING" "REPLACEMENT_STRING" --dry-run

When you’re ready to make changes to the database, run the command without the --dry-run flag.

wp search-replace "SEARCH_STRING" "REPLACEMENT_STRING"

Replace a domain name

To replace references to an old domain name in the WordPress database, first use the --dry-run flag to see which tables and columns have occurrences of the old domain name that will be replaced.

wp search-replace "old.example.com" "new.example.com" --dry-run

The output will look similar to the following.

+------------------------+-----------------+--------------+------+
| Table                  | Column          | Replacements | Type |
+------------------------+-----------------+--------------+------+
| wp_c7734cd387_comments | comment_content | 0            | SQL  |
| wp_c7734cd387_links    | link_url        | 0            | SQL  |
| wp_c7734cd387_links    | link_image      | 0            | SQL  |
| wp_c7734cd387_options  | option_value    | 2            | SQL  |
| wp_c7734cd387_posts    | post_content    | 1            | SQL  |
| wp_c7734cd387_posts    | post_title      | 0            | SQL  |
| wp_c7734cd387_posts    | guid            | 0            | SQL  |
| wp_c7734cd387_users    | display_name    | 0            | SQL  |
+------------------------+-----------------+--------------+------+
Success: 5 replacements to be made.

When you’re ready to update the database, run the command without the --dry-run flag.

wp search-replace "old.example.com" "new.example.com"