Uninstalling and removing your data

The video shows the difference between deactivating and deleting in under a minute; the details are written out below. There are two different actions on the WordPress Plugins page, and they do very different things: Deactivate stops the plugin temporarily; Delete removes the plugin and cleans up its own data. This page explains both, so you know exactly what happens to your settings, your shipment records, and your orders.

​

Deactivating: temporary, nothing is deleted

Deactivating only switches the plugin off. Nothing is deleted. While the plugin is deactivated:

• Your store stops showing FedEx prices at checkout and stops creating labels.
• Your settings, shipment records, and order history are all kept exactly as they are.
• WooCommerce serves your customers with whatever other shipping methods you have set up in your shipping zones — this is why it is worth having a flat-rate or table-rate method configured alongside FedEx.

Deactivating is fully reversible. Turn the plugin back on and everything works again with the settings you had. This is the right move for troubleshooting or while you reconfigure things.

​

Before you delete: a warning about shipment records

Some context makes this rule easier to live with:

• Only canceled shipments can be moved to the trash or deleted. Active shipments are protected — WordPress refuses the delete for them.
• Moving a shipment to the trash is safe. The order is only deleted when you permanently delete the shipment record from the trash.
• The safe order of operations: to remove a test order, delete the WooCommerce order first — its shipment record is removed with it automatically. Never start by permanently deleting the shipment record.

Deleting the plugin itself is different from deleting shipment records one by one: removing the plugin cleans up its own records but does not delete your orders. Details below.

​

What deleting the plugin removes

When you click Delete on the Plugins page, WordPress runs the plugin’s built-in cleanup. The following is removed: The cleanup is thorough on WordPress multisite networks too — every site in the network is cleaned.

​

What stays with your store

​

How to delete the plugin

The WordPress Plugins page. Deactivate stops the plugin; Delete removes it and runs the cleanup described above.

​

A few saved items may remain

The cleanup removes everything the plugin owns, but a few items stored with your WordPress site are left behind on purpose or by oversight:

• Box templates from the Product Box page are kept, because WordPress treats them as saved store data rather than plugin settings.
• Cached sign-in tokens under some configurations survive the cleanup. They expire on their own and stop working within hours.
• Label PDF files in the protected labels folder stay on your server until you remove them.

A few saved items may remain after deletion. If you want those removed as well, your developer can remove them by hand; see the developer reference for the full list of stored data: Options and stored data.

​

What’s next