Cleaning up your WordPress website is something all website owners should think about at one point or another. After all, as your website begins to grow, and old content, images, comments, and tags become less useful, you will need a way to ensure a clean slate and move forward with a fresher, much lighter, website.

But how do you go about bulk deleting large amounts of data from your website?

Do you start by manually deleting every old post you no longer want?  Talk about a long process. What if you try selecting all items you wish to delete in the queue and simply apply the “Move to Trash” function to everything you select?

Chances are somewhere along the line, you are going to clog the system, strain your server’s resources, and possibly even crash your entire website (especially if you are using a shared hosting provider).

There are many reasons why you might want to delete a large amount of information off your website. For example, maybe you are revamping your website and want to clear out old content that no longer serves a purpose.  Maybe you imported a bunch of posts from another CMS and something went awry.  Now you have to bulk delete and start all over.

In any case, no matter the reason why you want to delete data from your website, the point is there needs to be an effective way of approaching this task so that you preserve the parts of your website you want left intact. Plus, there needs to be solid support and documentation in place before you begin mass deleting all of your hard work.

This is where BulkWP.com comes into play.

Today, I am going to share with you what BulkWP.com is. I am also going to discuss their amazing WordPress plugin, Bulk Delete, along with the awesome add-ons that are available for extending Bulk Delete’s functionality.

What is BulkWP.com?

BulkWP.com is the official support site and online shop for the Bulk Delete WordPress plugin. In an effort to make purchasing Bulk Delete add-ons an easier process for website owners, among other things, BulkWP.com was built.

Here are some of the site’s most notable features:

• Online Store. Hassle-free purchasing of all available add-ons for the Bulk Delete plugin.
• Support Forum. Address issues you may experience with Bulk Delete or any of its add-ons. In addition, make feature requests and help translate Bulk Delete into your native language.
• Documentation. View basic documentation outlining how the plugin and add-ons work. Expansion of this section is underway and will eventually provide users with in-depth explanations of both the plugin and all add-ons.
• User Account and Profile. For existing users, access a profile page for things like past purchases, previously purchased add-on downloads, and license key renewals.

As you can see, the creator of Bulk Delete is aiming to improve user experience by providing all of Bulk Delete’s essential information in one convenient location.

But, What is Bulk Delete?

You may be asking yourself what exactly this Bulk Delete plugin is I keep referring to. Well, it’s a free WordPress plugin that allows website owners to delete posts, pages, attachments, users, and meta fields in bulk based on varying conditions and features.

Using this free plugin, you can delete the following posts manually based on the following conditions:

• Category
• Tag
• Custom Taxonomy
• Custom post type
• Post status
• URL
• Post revision

You can also delete pages based on status, delete users based on user roles and user meta, and delete meta fields based on post meta fields, comment meta fields, and user meta fields. Lastly, you can delete Jetpack contact messages manually using this deletion plugin.

Using Bulk Delete

As a free WordPress bulk delete plugin, easily found on BulkWP.com, Bulk Delete offers a fair amount of features that are useful for those looking to clean up their site and get rid of old “stuff”.

Easy Installation and Activation

Using Bulk Delete is just like using any other WordPress plugin. In fact, you can install and activate Bulk Delete directly from your WordPress dashboard by navigating to Plugins > Add New and searching for “Bulk Delete”.

From there, select Install Now and Activate.

You will notice upon activating the plugin that a new dashboard menu item labeled Bulk WP is added.

Here you can begin deleting posts, pages, users, meta fields, and miscellaneous data. Additionally, you can view any scheduled jobs you have defined, check out which add-ons you have purchased and registered for use on your website, and view system information that is useful when you need support.

Deleting Posts and Pages

If you click on the menu item Bulk Delete Posts or Bulk Delete Pages, you will see a screen with all of Bulk Delete’s filtering options for the data you can delete.

Here are the options available when seeking to bulk delete content, whether a post or a page:

• Status of post (all published, drafts, pending, scheduled, etc.)
• Category (post type and specific categories)
• Tag
• Custom Taxonomy
• Custom Post Type
• URL (posts or pages with a specific Permalink)
• Post Revisions

With each of these options, you also have the choice to further filter what is deleted.  For example, filter based on creation date and visibility. Next, decide whether to delete the content immediately or schedule it for a later time (note that scheduling deletion requires a premium add-on). Lastly, determine whether to trash or permanently delete content.

Bulk Delete Users

Navigating to Bulk Delete Users brings you to two sections – By User Role and By User Meta.

To start, select which users you would like deleted. Filter based on registration date, login activity, post statuses, and number of users. Depending on whether you have the premium add-on or not, you can also determine whether to delete the users now or schedule for a later date.

In addition, you can delete website data based on user meta. Again, you can filter based on the same conditions as deleting users – registration date, login activity, post statuses, and number of users. Delete users immediately or schedule for later.

Meta Fields and Miscellaneous Job Deletions

The Bulk Delete Meta Fields section will allow you to delete the following:

• Post meta fields
• Comment meta fields
• User meta fields

This only applies to meta key names. If you wish to include meta values, you will need to invest in the corresponding premium add-ons.

As mentioned earlier, the Bulk Delete Misc section allows you to delete Jetpack contact form messages. You can restrict which messages to delete based on post age and number of posts. However, to apply additional conditions you will need a premium add-on to extend Bulk Delete’s core functionality.

Bulk Delete Add-ons

As mentioned earlier, Bulk Delete has dozens of premium add-ons meant to extend the functionality of the free core plugin. You can find an entire list of them here. However, today I am going to show you some of the very best.

Bulk Delete Attachments

The Bulk Delete Attachments add-on lets you delete attachments based on whether they are attached to a post or not. You can delete all attachments not attached to posts, those that are attached to posts, and even define deletion based on their mime type (e.g. image, video, audio, etc.).

With this add-on, you can move all deleted attachments to the trash or remove them from your site permanently.  You can also define restrictions based on creation dates and number of attachments.

Price: $29

Bulk Delete Comment Meta Pro

The Bulk Delete Comment Meta Pro add-on takes what the free core plugin does one step further. With Bulk Delete, you are able to delete comment meta fields based on meta keys.

However, with this premium add-on, you are now able to delete the meta fields based on meta keys and values.  More so, you can schedule automatic deletion of meta fields.

These are some of the operators available when using this add-on:

• Equal or not equal to
• Less than
• Less than or equal to
• Greater than
• Like or not like

In addition, the meta value can belong to any of these data types:

• Strings
• Numeric or decimal
• Signed or unsigned
• Date and date time
• Time
• Binary

Price: $19

Bulk Delete from Trash

The Bulk Delete from Trash add-on does just what its name implies – it allows you to delete posts and pages that are already in the trash. This is great for filtering which posts and pages you want permanently deleted, without having to manually go through each one.

Here are some of the best features of this add-on:

• Delete all posts or pages from trash
• Remove based on post type
• Base deletion on trash dates, creation dates, or modification dates

Price: $15

Scheduler for Deleting Posts by Category

The Scheduler for Deleting Posts by Category add-on is for those that want to schedule automatic deletion of posts based on their categories.

Though the core Bulk Delete plugin does allow you to filter bulk deletion of posts based on their categories, this add-on implements the scheduler so you can automatically delete posts at a later date.

Price: $15

Final Recommendations

If you ever find yourself needing to delete a huge amount of data off your WordPress website, are looking to cleanup and revamp, or just want an effective way to filter what gets deleted, I suggest trying Bulk Delete.

It will save you loads of time from having to manually delete data, protect your website from massive “Delete All” attempts, and lets you stay in complete control over what stays and what goes.

And, with its ease of use, convenient BulkWP.com site, and the ability to extend your deletion requirements in dozens of ways, there really is no reason not to give Bulk Delete a try.

Have you ever used Bulk Delete to clean up your WordPress website? Did you use any of the premium add-ons? I would love to hear all about it in the comments below!

Get Bulk Delete Here