How to change WordPress theme outside of admin? Can’t access dashboard

There are a couple things you can do.

Option 1 – FTP

Easiest would be to FTP into your site and change the name of the currently active theme. Your themes are located in \wp-content\themes\. Temporarily changing the name will disable the theme. This should give you back access to the admin.

Option 2 – Database / PhpMyAdmin

You can also change the theme through the database, mostly likely via PhpMyAdmin.

There are 3 option rows in wp-options that you need to change. Once you change these it will change your theme.

• template – the “Theme Name” as defined in style.css
• stylesheet – the actual name of your theme folder
• current_theme – the actual name of your theme folder

FYI – You can run the following SQL to narrow down just those 3 rows

SELECT *
FROM wp_options
WHERE option_name="template"
OR option_name="stylesheet"
OR option_name="current_theme";