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3.4 Deactivating a Site

When you stop using a Tangible plugin on a site — the site is decommissioned, you're migrating to a new domain, or you've hit your activation limit and need to free a slot — you deactivate that site. Deactivating doesn't affect the license itself, only its usage: the activation count goes down by one, and the slot becomes available for another site.

There are two places you can deactivate from: the WordPress site itself, or Tangible Cloud.

tip

If you want to keep the site running but just move it to a different license (for example, a Creators' Club bundle you recently bought), don't deactivate — use the reassign license action on the site's detail page under Websites instead. That moves the activation from one license to another in a single step. See Viewing Your Websites.

From WordPress (preferred)​

Deactivating from the site where the plugin runs is the cleaner option because it also releases the key locally — the plugin will no longer consider itself licensed on that site.

  1. Open the site's WordPress admin and go to the Tangible plugin's License tab. The exact path varies per plugin.
  2. Click Deactivate (or the equivalent button the plugin displays).
  3. Tangible Cloud receives the deactivation and updates the license's activation count.

Back in Tangible Cloud, the site no longer appears on the license's Activations tab, and the activation count drops.

[MEDIA: screenshot | 3-4-wp-plugin-license-tab-active.png | The License tab inside a Tangible plugin's settings in WordPress admin, in its ACTIVATED state — showing a confirmed license (masked key like 7ZAK---6TCT), the current activation's site URL or identifier, and a Deactivate button (rather than Activate). Use Lifter Elements as the representative example. Desktop view, cropped to the license form card.] [ALT: WordPress plugin License tab in activated state showing the license status and a Deactivate button] [CAPTION: The Deactivate control is what was the Activate button before the site was successfully licensed.]

From Tangible Cloud​

If you can't reach the site (it's down, you've lost access, you've sold it), you can remove the activation from Tangible Cloud directly:

  1. Click Licensing in the left navigation and open the license the site was using.
  2. Click the Activations tab.
  3. Find the site in the list and use the remove/deactivate action on its row.
  4. Confirm the action if prompted.

The site is removed from the list and the activation slot is freed immediately.

[MEDIA: screenshot | 3-4-licensing-detail-activations-deactivate.png | The Activations tab of a license with at least one active site, hovering or showing the per-row remove/deactivate control. Capture the exact control that allows an Owner/Admin to remove an activation from the Cloud side — this may be a trash icon, a Remove button, or a Deactivate action in a row-level menu. If a confirmation modal appears on click, capture it as a separate image (licensing-detail-activations-deactivate-confirm.png). Desktop view, cropped to the Activations card and the relevant row.] [ALT: Tangible Cloud license Activations tab showing the control to remove an activation from a site row] [CAPTION: none]

warning

Deactivating from Tangible Cloud doesn't notify the plugin on the site — if the site is still running, the plugin may continue to behave as if it's activated until its next scheduled capability check, at which point it will report as unlicensed. If the site is still under your control, prefer deactivating from WordPress first.