How To Disable WP-Cron.php
One of the biggest support requests we see with WordPress has to deal with the wp-cron process.
WP-Cron manages all the scheduled events in your WordPress website. It’s a very common cause for high CPU loads and memory consumption especially for websites with very large databases and/or traffic.
By default WordPress is setup to call the wp-cron.php file each time someone hits your website. For most websites this is fine but when you start to get a lot of traffic it can really start to stack up the processes and take a toll on the overall performance of your website.
There are 3 ways to disable the wp-cron!
WP Toolkit
WordPress Manager by Softaculous
Manually disable wp-cron
Step 1: Login to your cPanel and click on the WP Toolkit link on the left menu. If the 'Take over wp-cron.php is not toggled, go ahead and toggle it. You are done!
The information bubble if you click on it...
That's it! You are done!
Step 1: Login to cPanel and click on the WordPress Manager by Softaculous.
Step 2: Hit the down arrow to expand options!
Step 3: If the WordPress Cron is not disabled, go ahead and disable it here!
The information bubble...
That's it, you are done!
Step 1: Login to your cPanel and click on File Manager.
Step 2: Find the wp-config.php file, click on it to highlight it blue. Then click Edit at the top.
Click Edit on the pop up...
Step 3: Near the top, add this line to the wp-config.php:
define( 'DISABLE_WP_CRON', true );
Like so... then click save changes in the upper right.
Step 4: Now add the cron to run it! In cPanel click on Cron Jobs
Step 5: Enter in the information you see here. Where it has the command just replace YOUR-DOMAIN.COM with your domain and click Add New Cron job!
wget -q -O - https://www.YOUR-DOMAIN.COM/wp-cron.php > /dev/null 2>&1
You’re all set! WP-Cron will only run once an hour and not when every time someone visits your website.
If you have any questions on this or would like our team to set it up for you, feel free to reach out!!
The video below is informational but the command above is more accurate going forward!
WP-Cron manages all the scheduled events in your WordPress website. It’s a very common cause for high CPU loads and memory consumption especially for websites with very large databases and/or traffic.
By default WordPress is setup to call the wp-cron.php file each time someone hits your website. For most websites this is fine but when you start to get a lot of traffic it can really start to stack up the processes and take a toll on the overall performance of your website.
There are 3 ways to disable the wp-cron!
WP Toolkit
WordPress Manager by Softaculous
Manually disable wp-cron
Disable via WP Toolkit
Step 1: Login to your cPanel and click on the WP Toolkit link on the left menu. If the 'Take over wp-cron.php is not toggled, go ahead and toggle it. You are done!
The information bubble if you click on it...
That's it! You are done!
Disable via WordPress Manager by Softaculous
Step 1: Login to cPanel and click on the WordPress Manager by Softaculous.
Step 2: Hit the down arrow to expand options!
Step 3: If the WordPress Cron is not disabled, go ahead and disable it here!
The information bubble...
That's it, you are done!
Manually disable the wp-cron.php
Step 1: Login to your cPanel and click on File Manager.
Step 2: Find the wp-config.php file, click on it to highlight it blue. Then click Edit at the top.
Click Edit on the pop up...
Step 3: Near the top, add this line to the wp-config.php:
define( 'DISABLE_WP_CRON', true );
Like so... then click save changes in the upper right.
Step 4: Now add the cron to run it! In cPanel click on Cron Jobs
Step 5: Enter in the information you see here. Where it has the command just replace YOUR-DOMAIN.COM with your domain and click Add New Cron job!
wget -q -O - https://www.YOUR-DOMAIN.COM/wp-cron.php > /dev/null 2>&1
You’re all set! WP-Cron will only run once an hour and not when every time someone visits your website.
If you have any questions on this or would like our team to set it up for you, feel free to reach out!!
The video below is informational but the command above is more accurate going forward!
Updated on: 10/10/2024
Thank you!