Here's how to clean up WordPress in just a few steps

After using WordPress for a while, you may want to consider optimize and clean your website, your database and more. By using these techniques that we are going to offer you, you will free up disk space, optimize your database for the best performance, and hopefully see an increase in performance on your website.

First and foremost, you must first make a backup of your website. There are several plugins for that.

Prevent image resizing

Have you ever been connected to your WordPress website via FTP? and observed the file / Wp-content / uploads / "? If you have it, you may notice that each image you download is resized several times automatically. These images are left there, permanently and will probably never be used.

It gets worse when you start adding plugins and WordPress themes custom, as they can also add their own image sizes which WordPress will process on each upload. Fortunately, there is a way to disable default image sizes in your WordPress settings.

How to clean WordPress in a few steps

Go to " Settings> Media ».

Thumbnails can be used by your WordPress theme to display articles on your " frontend », Which you can view by right clicking on the image to finally access these options.

On Firefox, right-click, then " Show image information ».

On Chrome, right click on the image then " open the image in a new tab ". Anyway, you will be able to see the name and location of the image which will also tell you whether your theme is using the original image or not.

If the thumbnail in use doesn't match the thumbnail size in media settings, then your theme is probably using its own image sizes. If so, you can set the thumbnail size, medium size, and large size to 0 for all fields.

Once saved, your WordPress will no longer create these additional images.

Disable or limit revisions

You can disable revisions of posts on all content so that this does not happen first by adding a single line of code to your wp-config.php file (the file that stores the authentication settings for your database). Add this line anywhere in your wp-config.php file and the revisions will no longer be saved:

Define ('WP_POST_REVISIONS', false);

Of course, revisions can be important, especially if you have a multi-author blog. If this is the case, I would recommend limiting the number of revisions to the articles to 3, so that your database is not as overloaded as possible, while still maintaining restore functionality.

Go further by discovering How to control article revisions in WordPress

Here is the code you would add to your wp-config-php file:

Define ('WP_POST_REVISIONS', 3);

Feel free to change the 3 to a number that suits you.

Revision cleanup plugin

Now that you've limited or eliminated article revisions, you still (probably) have some bloat existing in your database, which can be significant depending on how long it takes to add or edit content on your database. website.

Let's go ahead and clean up all the residue in the database. 

I recommend you use the plugin " WP Sweep ». Check out our tutorial on how to install a plugin for free.

Once installed and activated, go to " Tools> Sweep ».Wp sweep remove revision blog wordpress plugin

On this page you will see the screenshot above with all the options to clean up your database.

Be careful what you clean. For example, we like to plan our content in advance by saving draft articles. If we click on delete drafts, all these articles will be deleted.

Delete unused resized images

When you upload images, WordPress resizes several times, and some may not be used. In this case, you can delete resized images that are not used.screenshot

I recommend the plugin « DNUI Delete not used image »

Once installed, go to "Settings> DNUI", from there go to the " option And tick the option " Display only unused images So that the images used in your posts are hidden in the results page. Also update the amount of images to find to 100.

There is no Save button here, but after switching to the " Scan Database The settings will be used.

Go ahead and select / erase unused images.

Discover also some premium WordPress plugins  

You can use other WordPress plugins to give a modern appearance and to optimize the handling of your blog or website.

We offer you here some premium WordPress plugins that will help you do that.

1. RoyalSlider

The most downloaded slider on CodeCanyon, Royal Slider comes loaded with irresistible features. Used by companies as diverse as Coca-Cola, Ralph Lauren, and Land Rover, this plugin does just about everything you might expect from a slider. The most attractive feature is native full screen support.

Royalslider touch content slider for wordpress

Perfect for displaying high resolution photography. This plugin will definitely impress your visitors with its professional features. As features we will have among others: the ability to create several sliders with different styles per page, support for tactile navigation, responsive design, vertical or horizontal thumbnails, bullets or tabs for navigation, and more.

Download | Demo | Web hosting

2. Sama Author Review WordPress Plugin

Le WordPress Plugin Sama Author Review is one of the most outstanding plugins in this niche. With its unique design, this WordPress Plugin deserves your attention.

Sama author review wordpress plugin collect user reviews

Its features include: allowing any user or only those connected to leave a note, responsive layout, WPML plugin support, support for multiple types of posts, and more.

Download | Demo | Web hosting

3. ShareBang

ShareBang is a WordPress Plugin of revolutionary social sharing. It offers a complete and elegant experience that will help you increase traffic and improve sales and visibility of your products, pages and blog.

Sharebang ultimate social share buttons for wordpress 1

It supports +42 of the major social networks, including mobile apps, such as WhatsApp, Facebook, Telegram, Skype, Line, Viber and more. It comes with +21 positions dedicated to social sharing buttons, many features, a fully customizable layout, automatic and regular updates, integration with Mailchimp, Mailster and more ...

All of the above features and much more are extremely easy to use to help you gain more subscribers and generate more traffic. Simply join the next generation of social share button plugins.

Download | Demo | Web hosting

Recommended Resources

Find out about other recommended resources to help you build and manage your website.

Conclusion

Here ! That's all for this tutorial, I hope it will help you lighten your database. Do not hesitate to share with your friends on your favorite social networks

However, you will also be able to consult our resources, if you need more elements to carry out your projects of creation of Internet sites, by consulting our guide on the WordPress blog creation.

If you have suggestions or remarks, leave them in our section Comments.

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