Advanced Database Cleaner Premium helps WordPress administrators inspect database records, identify cleanup candidates, and control their removal. It covers unused, duplicated, expired, and orphaned data. Removing unnecessary records can reduce database size; effects on backups and query performance depend on the site and its workload.

Review candidates and set retention

Cleanup previews show available entries by type, the associated database space, and an estimate of the total space that may be freed. Sort preview rows by name, date, size, or site ID. For supported data, inspect serialized or JSON values in their original or formatted form. Filters narrow the records under review.

The “Keep last X days” rule limits cleanup to data older than the selected age. Premium also supports “Keep last X items,” either per parent, such as retaining a set number of revisions per post, or globally. The two retention rules can be combined. Review the selected records before removing them, and back up the database before cleanup.

Cleanup areas

• Posts and comments: Old revisions, auto-drafts, trashed posts, pending, spam, and trashed comments, pingbacks, and trackbacks.
• Metadata and relationships: Unused post, comment, visitor, and term metadata; unused relationships; and duplicated post, comment, user, and term metadata.
• Temporary data: Expired transients and oEmbed caches.
• WooCommerce: Orphaned product variations, orphaned customer analytics, and expired customer sessions.
• Action Scheduler: Completed, failed, and canceled actions and their logs, plus orphan logs. These cleanup options are Premium functions.

Inspect database records and ownership

Management screens provide details for tables, options, cron jobs, post types, metadata, and transients. Table views include row counts, size, engine, contents, columns, and indexes. The utilities can identify invalid table prefixes, optimize or repair tables, convert them to InnoDB, empty table rows, and clean or delete tables. Options can be reviewed by name, value, size, and autoload status; the add-on can flag large options and large autoloaded options. Cron job details include arguments, actions, schedules, and next run times.

Metadata screens show associated records and can identify unused or duplicated entries. Transient details include size and expiration, with tools to find large transients and manage their autoload status. The post types module lists post types and can identify and clean orphaned types.

Premium’s Remote SmartScan combines a local scan with cloud-based ownership data for tables, options, post meta, user meta, transients, and cron jobs. Ownership results can include multiple possible owners and show whether an owner is active, inactive, or not installed. Administrators can edit ownership when an entry is misidentified and check remote scan credits. Advanced filters across management modules can narrow results by properties such as size, value, expiration, owner, site ID, or whether an item is duplicated, unused, large, or expired.

Schedule maintenance and track changes

Create multiple cleanup tasks and choose which items each one handles, along with its retention rules. Premium supports unlimited scheduled cleanup tasks, including “Keep last X items” rules. Schedules can run once, hourly, twice a day, daily, weekly, or monthly. Database optimization and repair can also be scheduled, and tasks can be paused, resumed, or deleted. Per-task event logs record when a task ran, what it cleaned, and how many items it processed.

Database analytics track daily database size and table counts, with daily and monthly growth charts, raw measurements, and table-level size and row changes. Select multiple tables to compare their changes; analytics can help identify unusual growth, including growth associated with logs, caches, or recurring actions. Addon Activity records extension activations, deactivations, and uninstalls, as well as theme switches and uninstalls, in a timeline using local time.

Multisite and troubleshooting

The plugin supports multisite cleanup and optimization from the main site. Premium adds per-site filtering across management modules and network-wide automation. Other tools show the current database size, provide a logging system, and give access to the WordPress debug log from the plugin interface. Tabs can be shown or hidden, and the interface is responsive.

Install and activate the plugin in WordPress, then open its interface to review records and configure cleanup or scheduled tasks. Use the previews to inspect candidates before removal, and check the logs or debug log when troubleshooting.