Advanced Database Cleaner – Optimize & Clean Database to Speed Up Site Performance vs WP Super Cache

Advanced Database Cleaner is a complete WordPress optimization plugin that helps you clean up database clutter and optimize database performance by removing unused data such as old revisions, auto drafts, spam comments, expired transients, unused post meta, duplicated post meta, unused user meta, etc. It is designed to help you improve website speed by reducing database bloat and ensuring a lean, efficient WordPress installation. It also provides detailed previews, powerful filters, and automation tools to safely control what gets cleaned. With the ✨Premium version✨, you can unlock even more advanced features, such as detecting and cleaning orphaned options, orphaned tables, orphaned post meta, orphaned user meta, orphaned transients, and orphaned cron jobs. It also gives you clear insights into how your database evolves over time through built-in analytics, lets you monitor plugin and theme activity to better understand when new data is created or when leftovers appear, and much more. Why use Advanced Database Cleaner❓ 👉 Get a clear overview: see how many tables, options, transients, cron jobs, metadata… records you have, and identify which are unused or orphaned. 👉 Save time: configure what to clean, how far back to keep data, and how often to run automations. The plugin will then handle recurring cleanups for you. 👉 Save space and improve performance: removing unnecessary data reduces database size, makes backups faster, and can improve query performance, especially on busy or older sites. ✅ Main Features Delete old revisions of posts and pages Delete old auto-drafts Delete trashed posts Delete pending comments Delete spam comments Delete trashed comments Delete pingbacks Delete trackbacks Delete unused post meta Delete unused comment meta Delete unused user meta Delete unused term meta Delete unused relationships Delete expired transients Delete duplicated post meta Delete duplicated user meta Delete duplicated comment meta Delete duplicated term meta Delete oEmbed caches Display the database size that will be freed before cleaning for each item type, and the total size to be freed Display and preview items to clean before performing a database cleanup to ensure safety Sorting capability in cleanup preview tables (by name, date, size, site id, etc.) View options value content in original or formatted mode for serialized or JSON structures (and other items types as well). Keep last X days of data: clean only data older than the number of days you specify ✅ Automation Schedule database cleanup to run automatically Create scheduled cleanup tasks and specify which items each task should clean Schedule database optimization and/or repair to run automatically Execute scheduled tasks based on several frequencies: once, hourly, twice a day, daily, weekly, or monthly Specify the “keep last X days” rule for each item type in a scheduled task Pause/Resume scheduled tasks whenever needed Create as many scheduled cleanup tasks as needed and specify what each task should clean ✅ Tables Display the list of database tables with information such as number of rows, table size, engine, etc. Sort tables by any column such as table name or table size Display table contents along with their column structure, indexes, status, and more Detect and filter tables with invalid prefixes (tables that do not belong to the current WordPress installation), this can be enabled or disabled from the settings page Optimize database tables (the plugin notifies you when tables require optimization) Repair corrupted or damaged database tables (the plugin notifies you when tables are corrupted) Convert tables to InnoDB for better performance Empty rows of database tables Clean and delete database tables ✅ Options Display the options list with information such as option name, option value, option size, and autoload status Sort options by any column such as option name or option size View option value content in original or formatted mode for serialized or JSON structures. Notify you if autoloaded options are large and help reduce autoload size for better performance Detect large options that may slow down your website Set option autoload to yes/no Clean and delete options ✅ Cron Jobs Display the list of active cron jobs (scheduled tasks) with information such as arguments, action, next run, schedule, etc. Sort cron jobs by any column such as action name or next run time Detect cron jobs with no valid actions Clean and delete scheduled tasks ✅ Post Meta Display the post meta list with information such as meta key, value, size, associated post ID, etc. Sort post meta by any column such as meta key, meta size, or post ID View post meta value content in original or formatted mode for serialized or JSON structures. Detect unused post meta (meta not associated with any existing posts) Detect duplicated post meta (same meta key/value for the same post ID) Clean and delete post meta ✅ Post types Display post types with information such as name, post count, visibility (public or non-public), etc. Sort post types by columns such as name, post count, visibility, etc. View posts corresponding to each post type, along with their details Detect unused or orphaned post types Clean orphaned post types ✅ User Meta Display the user meta list with information such as meta key, value, size, associated user ID, etc. Sort user meta by any column such as meta key, meta size, or user ID View user meta value content in original or formatted mode for serialized or JSON structures. Detect unused user meta (meta not associated with any existing users) Detect duplicated user meta (same meta key/value for the same user ID) Clean and delete user meta ✅ Transients Display the list of transients with information such as name, value, size, and expiration time Sort transients by any column such as transient name, size, or expiration time View transient value content in original or formatted mode for serialized or JSON structures. Clean expired transients Detect large transients that may slow down your website Clean and delete transients Set transient autoload to yes/no ✅ WooCommerce Clean orphaned product variations Clean orphaned customer analytics Clean expired customer sessions ✅ Other Tools Display current database size Logging system for easy troubleshooting Access the WordPress debug log directly from the plugin interface Multisite support (network-wide database cleanup and optimization from the main site) Modern, responsive interface powered by React for a smooth experience without page reloads Show/hide plugin tabs for better usability ⚡ Premium Features ⚡ Official website Unlock the full power of database cleanup and optimization with Advanced Database Cleaner Premium – packed with smart features that take accuracy, speed, and cleanup control to the next level. ✅ Remote SmartScan Local scan + Remote SmartScan technology to accurately detect the true owners of tables, options, post meta, user meta, transients, and cron jobs Cloud-enhanced ownership detection using a large and continuously improving remote database Improved accuracy for identifying orphaned items left by deleted plugins and themes Ability to edit ownership of any item and correct misidentified owners Ability to send ownership corrections to improve the global detection database Enhanced “Belongs to” ownership column everywhere using cloud data + local data Display multiple possible owners for each item when applicable Display owner status (active, inactive, not installed) to simplify cleanup decisions Check your remote scan credits to monitor usage ✅ Action Scheduler Cleanup Clean Action Scheduler Completed actions Clean Action Scheduler Failed actions Clean Action Scheduler Canceled actions Clean Action Scheduler Completed logs Clean Action Scheduler Failed logs Clean Action Scheduler Canceled logs Clean Action Scheduler Orphan logs ✅ General Cleanup Enhancements Keep last X items feature in General Cleanup Keep last X items per parent (e.g., per post) Keep last X items globally (e.g., keep the last 10 pingbacks) Combine Keep Last X Days with Keep Last X Items for advanced cleanup safety ✅ Advanced Filters Advanced filters in all modules (Tables, Options, Post Meta, User Meta, Transients, Cron Jobs) Filter by size, value content, autoload, expiration, metadata type, and more Filter by plugin owner, theme owner, WordPress core, orphan, or unknown Filter by multisite site ID with full per-site visibility Filter by action frequency and interval in cron jobs Filter by duplicated, unused, large, not-yet-scanned, or expired items ✅ Advanced Automation Unlimited automation tasks (Free version is limited to 5 tasks) Create any number of scheduled cleanup tasks with different configurations Create scheduled optimization and repair tasks Use Keep Last X Items and Keep Last X Days inside scheduled tasks Run automation tasks hourly, twice daily, daily, weekly, monthly, or at any supported frequency Pause/resume/delete automation tasks without losing settings Per-task automation event logging showing executed actions, number of items cleaned, execution timestamps, and detailed logs ✅ Database Analytics Daily tracking of total database size and number of tables Daily and monthly charts showing database growth trends Raw data tab with all recorded measurements Table-level analytics showing size growth, rows growth, and daily changes Ability to detect abnormal table growth caused by logs, caches, or runaway actions Multi-table selection and search for analyzing multiple tables at once ✅ Addons Activity Automatically track plugin activations, deactivations, and uninstalls Automatically track theme switches and uninstalls Display activity in a color-coded timeline for better readability All timestamps shown in your local timezone Multisite support (activity recorded on the main site) ✅ Full Multisite Support Clean any site or all sites Filter items by site ID in every module (Tables, Options, Post Meta, User Meta, Transients, Cron Jobs) Display which site each item belongs to Run automation tasks across the entire network 🛒 WOptimize – The Cleaner & Optimizer for WooCommerce If you run a WooCommerce store and want to go further, try our dedicated plugin WOptimize – the ultimate solution to clean and speed up your WooCommerce store. Learn more: https://sigmaplugin.com/downloads/woptimize

This plugin generates static html files from your dynamic WordPress blog. After a html file is generated your webserver will serve that file instead of processing the comparatively heavier and more expensive WordPress PHP scripts. The static html files will be served to the vast majority of your users: Users who are not logged in. Users who have not left a comment on your blog. Or users who have not viewed a password protected post. 99% of your visitors will be served static html files. One cached file can be served thousands of times. Other visitors will be served custom cached files tailored to their visit. If they are logged in, or have left comments those details will be displayed and cached for them. The plugin serves cached files in 3 ways (ranked by speed): Expert. The fastest method is by using Apache mod_rewrite (or whatever similar module your web server supports) to serve “supercached” static html files. This completely bypasses PHP and is extremely quick. If your server is hit by a deluge of traffic it is more likely to cope as the requests are “lighter”. This does require the Apache mod_rewrite module (which is probably installed if you have custom permalinks) and a modification of your .htaccess file which is risky and may take down your site if modified incorrectly. Simple. Supercached static files can be served by PHP and this is the recommended way of using the plugin. The plugin will serve a “supercached” file if it exists and it’s almost as fast as the mod_rewrite method. It’s easier to configure as the .htaccess file doesn’t need to be changed. You still need a custom permalink. You can keep portions of your page dynamic in this caching mode. WP-Cache caching. This is mainly used to cache pages for known users, URLs with parameters and feeds. Known users are logged in users, visitors who leave comments or those who should be shown custom per-user data. It’s the most flexible caching method and slightly slower. WP-Cache caching will also cache visits by unknown users if supercaching is disabled. You can have dynamic parts to your page in this mode too. This mode is always enabled but you can disable caching for known users, URLs with parameters, or feeds separately. Set the constant “DISABLE_SUPERCACHE” to 1 in your wp-config.php if you want to only use WP-Cache caching. If you’re not comfortable with editing PHP files then use simple mode. It’s easy to set up and very fast. Recommended Settings Simple caching. Compress pages. Don’t cache pages for known users. Cache rebuild. CDN support. Extra homepage checks. Garbage collection is the act of cleaning up cache files that are out of date and stale. There’s no correct value for the expiry time but a good starting point is 1800 seconds. Consider deleting the contents of the “Rejected User Agents” text box and allow search engines to cache files for you. Preload as many posts as you can and enable “Preload Mode”. Garbage collection of old cached files will be disabled. If you don’t care about sidebar widgets updating often set the preload interval to 2880 minutes (2 days) so all your posts aren’t recached very often. When the preload occurs the cache files for the post being refreshed is deleted and then regenerated. Afterwards a garbage collection of all old files is performed to clean out stale cache files. Even with preload mode enabled cached files will still be deleted when posts are modified or comments made. Development Active development of this plugin is handled on GitHub. Translation of the plugin into different languages is on the translation page. Documentation If you need more information than the following, you can have a look at the wiki or the Developer documentation. Preloading You can generate cached files for the posts, categories and tags of your site by preloading. Preloading will visit each page of your site generating a cached page as it goes along, just like any other visitor to the site. Due to the sequential nature of this function, it can take some time to preload a complete site if there are many posts. To make preloading more effective it can be useful to disable garbage collection so that older cache files are not deleted. This is done by enabling “Preload Mode” in the settings. Be aware however, that pages will go out of date eventually but that updates by submitting comments or editing posts will clear portions of the cache. Garbage Collection Your cache directory fills up over time, which takes up space on your server. If space is limited or billed by capacity, or if you worry that the cached pages of your site will go stale then garbage collection has to be done. Garbage collection happens on a regular basis and deletes old files in the cache directory. On the advanced settings page you can specify: 1. Cache timeout. How long cache files are considered fresh for. After this time they are stale and can be deleted. 2. Scheduler. Setup how often garbage collection should be done. 3. Notification emails. You can be informed on garbage collection job progress. There’s no right or wrong settings for garbage collection. It depends on your own site. If your site gets regular updates, or comments then set the timeout to 1800 seconds, and set the timer to 600 seconds. If your site is mostly static you can disable garbage collection by entering 0 as the timeout, or use a really large timeout value. The cache directory, usually wp-content/cache/ is only for temporary files. Do not ever put important files or symlinks to important files or directories in that directory. They will be deleted if the plugin has write access to them. CDN A Content Delivery Network (CDN) is usually a network of computers situated around the world that will serve the content of your website faster by using servers close to you. Static files like images, Javascript and CSS files can be served through these networks to speed up how fast your site loads. You can also create a “poor man’s CDN” by using a sub domain of your domain to serve static files too. OSSDL CDN off-linker has been integrated into WP Super Cache to provide basic CDN support. It works by rewriting the URLs of files (excluding .php files) in wp-content and wp-includes on your server so they point at a different hostname. Many CDNs support origin pull. This means the CDN will download the file automatically from your server when it’s first requested, and will continue to serve it for a configurable length of time before downloading it again from your server. Configure this on the “CDN” tab of the plugin settings page. This is an advanced technique and requires a basic understanding of how your webserver or CDNs work. Please be sure to clear the file cache after you configure the CDN. REST API There are now REST API endpoints for accessing the settings of this plugin. You’ll need to be authenticated as an admin user with permission to view the settings page to use it. This has not been documented yet but you can find all the code that deals with this in the “rest” directory. Custom Caching It is now possible to hook into the caching process using the add_cacheaction() function. Three hooks are available: ‘wp_cache_get_cookies_values’ – modify the key used by WP Cache. ‘add_cacheaction’ – runs in phase2. Allows a plugin to add WordPress hooks. ‘cache_admin_page’ – runs in the admin page. Use it to modify that page, perhaps by adding new configuration options. There is one regular WordPress filter too. Use the “do_createsupercache” filter to customize the checks made before caching. The filter accepts one parameter. The output of WP-Cache’s wp_cache_get_cookies_values() function. WP Super Cache has its own plugin system, loaded before most of WordPress. Add your own plugin either by putting it in the wp-content/plugins/wp-super-cache-plugins directory, or by calling wpsc_add_plugin( $name ) with the full path to the plugin. The cookies used to identify “known users” can be modified with wpsc_add_cookie( $name ) and wpsc_delete_cookie( $name ). See plugins/searchengine.php as an example. Troubleshooting If things don’t work when you installed the plugin here are a few things to check: Is wp-content writable by the web server? Is there a wp-content/wp-cache-config.php ? If not, copy the file wp-super-cache/wp-cache-config-sample.php to wp-content/wp-cache-config.php and make sure WPCACHEHOME points at the right place. Is there a wp-content/advanced-cache.php ? If not, then you must copy wp-super-cache/advanced-cache.php into wp-content/. You must edit the file and change the path so it points at the wp-super-cache folder. If pages are not cached at all, remove wp-content/advanced-cache.php and recreate it, following the advice above. Make sure the following line is in wp-config.php and it is ABOVE the “require_once(ABSPATH.’wp-settings.php’);” line: define( 'WP_CACHE', true ); Try the Settings->WP Super Cache page again and enable cache. Look in wp-content/cache/supercache/. Are there directories and files there? Anything in your php error_log? If your browser keeps asking you to save the file after the super cache is installed you must disable Super Cache compression. Go to the Settings->WP Super Cache page and disable it there. File locking errors such as “failed to acquire key 0x152b: Permission denied in…” or “Page not cached by WP Super Cache. Could not get mutex lock.” are a sign that you may have to use file locking. Edit wp-content/wp-cache-config.php and uncomment “$use_flock = true” or set $sem_id to a different value. You can also disable file locking from the Admin screen as a last resort. Make sure cache/wp_cache_mutex.lock is writable by the web server if using coarse file locking. The cache folder cannot be put on an NFS or Samba or NAS share. It has to be on a local disk. File locking and deleting expired files will not work properly unless the cache folder is on the local machine. Garbage collection of old cache files won’t work if WordPress can’t find wp-cron.php. Check your access_logs for wp-cron.php entries and that your hostname resolves to the external IP address other servers on the network/Internet use. If old pages are being served to your visitors via the supercache, you may be missing Apache modules (or their equivalents if you don’t use Apache). 3 modules are required: mod_mime, mod_headers and mod_expires. The last two are especially important for making sure browsers load new versions of existing pages on your site. The error message, “WP Super Cache is installed but broken. The path to wp-cache-phase1.php in wp-content/advanced-cache.php must be fixed!” appears at the end of every page. Open the file wp-content/advanced-cache.php in your favourite editor. Is the path to wp-cache-phase1.php correct? This file will normally be in wp-content/plugins/wp-super-cache/. If it is not correct the caching engine will not load. Caching doesn’t work. The timestamp on my blog keeps changing when I reload. Check that the path in your .htaccess rules matches where the supercache directory is. You may have to hardcode it. Try disabling supercache mode. If supercache cache files are generated but not served, check the permissions on all your wp-content/cache/supercache folders (and each of wp-content cache and supercache folders) and wp-content/cache/.htaccess. If your PHP runs as a different user to Apache and permissions are strict Apache may not be able to read the PHP generated cache files. To fix you must add the following line to your wp-config.php (Add it above the WP_CACHE define.) Then clear your cache. umask( 0022 ); If you see garbage in your browser after enabling compression in the plugin, compression may already be enabled in your web server. In Apache you must disable mod_deflate, or in PHP zlib compression may be enabled. You can disable that in three ways. If you have root access, edit your php.ini and find the zlib.output_compression setting and make sure it’s “Off” or add this line to your .htaccess: php_flag zlib.output_compression off If that doesn’t work, add this line to your wp-config.php: ini_set('zlib.output_compression', 0); After uninstalling, your permalinks may break if you remove the WordPress mod_rewrite rules too. Regenerate those rules by visiting the Settings->Permalink page and saving that form again. If your blog refuses to load make sure your wp-config.php is correct. Are you missing an opening or closing PHP tag? Your front page is ok but posts and pages give a 404? Go to Settings->permalinks and click “Save” once you’ve selected a custom permalink structure. You may need to manually update your .htaccess file. If certain characters do not appear correctly on your website your server may not be configured correctly. You need to tell visitors what character set is used. Go to Settings->Reading and copy the ‘Encoding for pages and feeds’ value. Edit the .htaccess file with all your Supercache and WordPress rewrite rules and add this at the top, replacing CHARSET with the copied value. (for example, ‘UTF-8’) AddDefaultCharset CHARSET The error message, “WP Super Cache is installed but broken. The constant WPCACHEHOME must be set in the file wp-config.php and point at the WP Super Cache plugin directory.” appears at the end of every page. You can delete wp-content/advanced-cache.php and reload the plugin settings page or edit wp-config.php and look for WPCACHEHOME and make sure it points at the wp-super-cache folder. This will normally be wp-content/plugins/wp-super-cache/ but you’ll likely need the full path to that file (so it’s easier to let the settings page fix it). If it is not correct the caching engine will not load. If your server is running into trouble because of the number of semaphores used by the plugin it’s because your users are using file locking which is not recommended (but is needed by a small number of users). You can globally disable file locking by defining the constant WPSC_DISABLE_LOCKING, or defining the constant WPSC_REMOVE_SEMAPHORE so that sem_remove() is called after every page is cached but that seems to cause problems for other processes requesting the same semaphore. Best to disable it. Set the variable $htaccess_path in wp-config.php or wp-cache-config.php to the path of your global .htaccess if the plugin is looking for that file in the wrong directory. This might happen if you have WordPress installed in an unusual way.