How to clean a WordPress database with the Advanced Database Cleaner plugin

Estimated reading: 2 minutes 68 views

To install the Advanced Database Cleaner plugin, follow these steps:

Log in to WordPress as the administrator.
On the Dashboard in the left sidebar, click Plugins, and then click Add New:
On the Add Plugins page, in the Search plugins text box, type Advanced Database Cleaner and then press Enter.
Locate the Advanced Database Cleaner section, and then click Install Now:
When installation is complete, click Activate. You are now ready to configure Advanced Database Cleaner.

To run the Advanced Database Cleaner plugin, follow these steps:

Before you do any cleaning, create a backup of your database in case you need to revert any changes.
Log in to WordPress as the administrator.
On the Dashboard in the left sidebar, click WP DB Cleaner:
On the Advanced DB Cleaner page are several tabs:
- General clean-up: On this tab you select the specific items that you want to clean.Be careful which items you clean! If you clean Revisions or Auto drafts, you may affect someone else’s work in progress. We strongly recommend you only run the cleaner when no one else is logged in to WordPress.
- Tables: Click this tab to see the tables in the WordPress database. You can optimize and repair tables on this tab.
- Options: Click this tab to see WordPress settings in the options table.
- Cron jobs: Click this tab to see the cron jobs for the WordPress installation.
- Overview & settings: Click this tab to see an overview of your site’s database and unused data.
To clean the database:
- On the General clean-up tab, in the Bulk actions list box, select Clean.
- Select the check box next to the item you want to clean. For an initial cleanup we recommend the following items:
  - Spam comments.
  - Trashed comments.
  - All orphaned data options.
- Click Apply.
- Click Continue to confirm. Advanced DB Cleaner cleans the specified items.