Looking for script to clean up wp_postmeta table in WordPress? This article share on how to reduce the wp_postmeta table size and improve the performance of your blog.

As you know, wp_postmeta table hold data related to wp_posts. Example – All In One SEO Pack will create entries in wp_postmeta table if you define the keyword or description for each blog post.

WordPress will do a join operation between wp_posts and wp_postmeta table each time when people visit your blog post based on the id key.

So the rule of thumb is to keep wp_postmeta table size as small as possible to reduce the time consumed in table join operation.

Delete WordPress Plugin Orphan Records In WP_PostMeta

Okay. I know you assume that all the WordPress plugins will clear their respective entries from the database once you deactivated and deleted it.

But most of time our assumption isn’t right. Let’s check out the meta_key records in wp_postmeta table by using the query as below. You will be surprise to find out there’s bunch of orphan records living inside there.

SELECT meta_key, COUNT(meta_key) FROM wp_postmeta GROUP BY meta_key;

I saw lots of records is related to the WP To Twitter plugin which was removed long time ago.

I proceed to execute the clean up script as below after created backup for the WordPress database.

DELETE FROM wp_postmeta WHERE meta_key = '_jd_post_meta_fixed';
 
DELETE FROM wp_postmeta WHERE meta_key = '_jd_tweet_this';
 
DELETE FROM wp_postmeta WHERE meta_key = '_jd_twitter';
 
DELETE FROM wp_postmeta WHERE meta_key = '_jd_wp_twitter';
 
DELETE FROM wp_postmeta WHERE meta_key = '_wp_jd_bitly';
 
DELETE FROM wp_postmeta WHERE meta_key = '_wp_jd_clig';
 
DELETE FROM wp_postmeta WHERE meta_key = '_wp_jd_target';
 
DELETE FROM wp_postmeta WHERE meta_key = '_wp_jd_url';
 
DELETE FROM wp_postmeta WHERE meta_key = '_wp_jd_wp';
 
DELETE FROM wp_postmeta WHERE meta_key = '_wp_jd_yourls';
 
DELETE FROM wp_postmeta WHERE meta_key = 'jd_wp_twitter';

There’s high number of count for both _edit_lock and _edit_last meta_key and I proceed to remove the records.

No error detected when create, edit and publish blog post after the removal of _edit_lock and _edit_last meta_key. Voila!

DELETE FROM wp_postmeta WHERE meta_key = '_edit_lock';
 
DELETE FROM wp_postmeta WHERE meta_key = '_edit_last';

Additional tips: You may install Clean Options plugin to the orphan records in wp_options.