Take your site public again

Goal: launch. Remove protection cleanly.

Steps

1. Go to Password Protected → Settings.
2. Turn off Enable global protection.
3. Click Save settings.
4. If you also protected the store, go to WooCommerce Protection and turn off Protect Entire Store.
5. Check the Passwords screen for any page or category rules still active, and deactivate those you no longer want.

Verify

1. Open a private window and visit your site. You should see it immediately.
2. Check a page that previously had its own password.
3. Check /feed/ loads.
4. The admin bar should now read “Site public”.

After launching

• Clear your caches — page cache, CDN, and any host-level cache — so stored copies of the password screen are not still being served.
• Resubmit to search engines if the site was protected for a long time. In Google Search Console, request indexing.

Should you deactivate the plugin?

You do not need to. With protection off it does nothing to your public site, and leaving it installed means your configuration is still there when you next need it.