Introduction

The Cron service is one of the most valuable scheduling system utilities you can find as part of your Web Hosting Account, but it is a little bit more complicated than that when you are using WordPress. WordPress uses its own pseudo-cron, called WP-Cron, which is not a real cron job, and it is just what WordPress has created to mimic/replace what a system cron does on its own. The WP-cron (wp-cron.php) activates every time a page loads, which on heavy traffic sites can cause issues, so this is why it is important to disable it.

By the way, there is an excellent HostArmada tutorial that you can use on how to manage your cron jobs that you can find right here!

Let’s get down to our step-by-step guide on how to disable the WP Cron functionality!

How to disable WP-cron?

Doing this isn’t as hard as you may imagine, so here are the steps. And trust us when we say that this is the right choice for you when it comes to your website performance!

So let’s start at the beginning:

Step 1. Locate your wp-config.php file, which you can find in your WordPress website root folder.

You can either use FTP to download and locate the wp-config.php file or locate it by accessing your cPanel and then opening up the File Manager.

If you are having issues locating your cPanel, you can check this HostArmada tutorial.

We also have an excellent tutorial on how to work with the File Manager.

There is also another tutorial that can help you use your FTP which you can find here.

Step 2. Editing the wp-config.php file is the next step, whichever method you use.

To disable the WP-Cron, you have to add the following to your wp-config.php file, just before the line that says, “That's all, stop editing! Happy publishing.”:

define('DISABLE_WP_CRON', true);

Step 3. The final step is simply to make sure that you have saved the file to your WordPress root folder, either by uploading the newly edited file via FTP or by saving it through the File Manager.

This is how you disable wp-cron!

Conclusion

That is all that there is to it regarding disabling the WP-cron for your WordPress website. You don’t have to take our word for it and see for yourself! We hope that this has been informative and accessible to quickly get this done yourself if required or you’d like to. Remember that if you have any questions, suggestions, or concerns, you can always reach back to us at any time. HostArmada remains ready to be deployed 24/7!