Bulk Delete

A bulk delete does what you asked, not what you meant

Thousands of posts from a category that no longer exists, drafts nobody will finish, accounts that have not logged in for years, revisions piled up on every article. From the normal WordPress screens, clearing that means ticking boxes page after page, and at some point nobody sits down to do it.

Bulk Delete solves that part: you pick a condition and the plugin deletes everything that meets it. And that is where the risk changes. The dangerous part of a bulk delete is not the button, it is the filter nobody rehearsed. A category shared with content you meant to keep, or a date counted the wrong way, runs with the same obedience as a correct order.

So it is worth using it the way you would run a rehearsal: a few posts, to the trash, and a look at what it took before launching the full order. This listing describes version 6.0.2.

What version 6.0.2 can delete

• Posts by criteria: category, tag, custom taxonomy, custom post type, comment count or URL.
• Posts by status: drafts, pending, private and scheduled.
• Pages by status: published, drafts, pending, private and scheduled.
• Revisions: all post revisions.
• Users: by role, by user meta fields, by not having logged in for X days or by registration date.
• Meta fields: post, comment and user meta.
• Jetpack contact form messages.

The filters that let you rehearse before deleting

The post and page options share these filters:

• Age: post date greater or less than X days.
• Visibility: only public or only private.
• Limit: restrict the operation to the first N.
• Destination: delete permanently or move to trash.

The last two make up the rehearsal. A small limit and the trash show you what the filter reaches without putting anything at risk. What moves to the trash can be recovered; what is deleted permanently cannot.

The filters for users and meta fields do not include the trash, so have a recent backup before you start.

What stays outside the base plugin in this version

In 6.0.2 several functions are separate Pro add-ons and are not part of the base plugin:

• Scheduling automatic deletions, and getting an email when they run.
• Deleting posts by title, duplicate title, content or custom field.
• Deleting posts by author, by role or by whether they have attachments.
• Deleting attachments and emptying the trash of posts and pages.

Requirements, server and first cleanup

It asks for WordPress 4.4 or later and PHP 5.3 or later. With a huge number of posts on a tight server a blank page can appear; the most common problems are script timeout and memory. The values worth raising are max_execution_time = 600, max_input_time = 30 and memory_limit = 256M, and Bulk WP, System Info shows what your server has.

A safe first cleanup follows this order:

1. Take a full backup of the site.
2. Check in System Info whether the server has room.
3. Run the filter with a small limit and the trash as its destination.
4. Check in the trash what it took and, if it is right, repeat without the limit.

Other ways to clean a site in the catalog

If what you need is to correct rather than remove, WPBulky bulk edits posts, pages, media and custom post types from a spreadsheet-style table. For unused files, Media Cleaner Pro works on the media library and the uploads folder, with a trash and restore.

If the weight is in the database, Database Cleaner Pro deals with transients and orphaned tables. To undo a big change, WP Reset PRO creates snapshots that restore with one click.

Questions before running a bulk delete in WordPress

Can deleted content be recovered?

If you chose to move it to the trash, yes, from the WordPress trash. If you chose to delete permanently, no.

Can automatic deletions be scheduled?

In version 6.0.2, only with separate Pro add-ons. The base plugin runs deletions when you launch them.