Hello @jgold723
Thank you for your inquiry and I am happy to assist you with this.
W3 Total Cache cannot do any permanent damage to your website. YOu should start by enabling the plugin and enable the desired settings one by one, followed by saving all settings and purging the cache. This way you will make sure that some setting is not causing any issues, so make sure to check your website after each setting is changed. If you see any issues on your website simply ever the changes in W3 Total cache, and again save all settings and purge the cache.
W3 Total cache is the most powerful caching plugin and because of that, it has some additional files. W3 Total Cache is adding rules to your .htaccess (browser cache and page Cache), it creates a cache folder in wp-content (the cached files are served from this folder) and also there are some drop-ins in the wp-content folder, depending on your settings.
To completely remove W3 Total Cache you should do the following:
1. Purge Cache
2. Deactivate and Delete Plugin
3. Check .htaccess File (make backup)
W3TC will create many directives in the .htaccess file to control the caching behavior. Each section will start and end with comments like “#BEGIN W3TC Page Cache core” and “#END W3TC Page Cache core”.
Ensure that no residual entries are leftover in your .htaccess file after deleting the plugin.
4. Delete wp-content files and folders
– cache folder
– w3tc-config folder
– object-cache.php (if exists)
– advanced-cache.php (if exists)
– dbcache.php (if exists)
– upgrade folder
– delete w3-total-cache folder in wp-content (if exists)
5. Delete Cached Files from CDN (if using CDN)
Besides deleting all the relevant files, if you use CDN then ensure to purge the cached content from your CDN. This is necessary when you enabled the minify option in W3TC settings. You should delete the minified and combined scripts and CSS files from your CDN server to avoid the site breaking on the browser.
Thank you!
