MainWP Maintenance Extension
Clear revisions, comments and transients from your child site databases on demand or on a schedule.
Clear out revisions, spam and transients across your child sites
The MainWP Maintenance Extension is a Pro MainWP add-on that cleans and optimizes your child site databases, removing revisions, drafts, trash content, comments, empty taxonomies and transients. Cleanup runs from your MainWP Dashboard on demand or on a schedule, for the sites, tags or clients you pick.
Cleaning up each site’s database by hand
Database cleanup by hand means logging in to each site separately to clear out old revisions, spam and stale transients and to optimize its tables. The MainWP Maintenance Extension runs the cleanup tasks you choose once on a group of sites, and schedules repeat the work for you.
Features
The MainWP Maintenance Extension lets you pick each cleanup task. Run them now or save them as a schedule.
| Feature | What it means for you |
|---|---|
| Content cleanup | Delete post revisions, auto draft posts and trash posts. Set Except for the last to keep the newest revisions. |
| Comment and taxonomy cleanup | Delete spam, pending and trash comments, and remove empty tags and categories. |
| Transient cleanup | Choose to keep transients, delete expired transients, or delete all transients. |
| Database optimization | Optimize the database tables of your child sites in the same run. |
| Targets by site, tag or client | Pick the child sites for a run or a schedule in the Select Sites accordion by Sites, Tags or Clients. A progress window shows the tasks as they run on each site. |
| Recurring schedules | Save the cleanup as a schedule with its own frequency, run day and hour. Run a schedule now, pause and resume it, or pause, resume and delete several schedules at once with bulk actions. |
| Schedule status and run details | The Schedules table shows each schedule’s status, target count, last run and next run. For a site where a run ended in an error, click the Failed label to see the site name, URL and recorded error. |
| Maintenance data in Pro Reports | Show completed maintenance in client reports with [section.maintenance.process], [maintenance.process.date], [maintenance.process.details], [maintenance.process.result] and [maintenance.process.count]. |
Requirements
The MainWP Maintenance Extension is installed on your MainWP Dashboard and does its work on your connected child sites. Back up first.
| Item | Requirement |
|---|---|
| License | MainWP Pro |
| MainWP Dashboard | The MainWP Maintenance Extension installed and activated. No third-party plugins are needed. |
| Child sites | Connected MainWP Child sites |
| Backups | A recent database backup for each site you plan to maintain |
| Pro Reports (optional) | The MainWP Pro Reports Extension, to add maintenance results to client reports |
Setup: run now or on a schedule
The MainWP Maintenance Extension uses the same task choices for a one-off run and for a schedule.
Run maintenance now
- Go to MainWP > Add-ons > Performance > Maintenance and stay on the Maintenance tab.
- Select the cleanup tasks. If you turn on Delete all post revisions, set Except for the last to the number of revisions to keep.
- In Transient Cleanup, choose to skip transients, delete expired transients, or delete all transients.
- In the Select Sites accordion, choose your targets by Sites, Tags or Clients.
- Click Run Maintenance and confirm any warnings for database optimization or deleting all transients.
Schedule maintenance
- Go to MainWP > Add-ons > Performance > Maintenance > Schedules and click Create New Schedule.
- Enter a Schedule title and choose the Schedule frequency. For weekly, monthly and yearly schedules that run once per period, choose the run day and hour in Schedule Options.
- Leave Paused off so the schedule runs automatically.
- Choose the cleanup tasks, revision retention value and transient cleanup mode, then pick the targets in the Select Sites accordion.
- Click Schedule Maintenance.
Full instructions for cleanup options, schedule statuses, row actions and bulk actions: Maintenance documentation.
When and where the cleanup runs
The MainWP Maintenance Extension keeps the setup on your MainWP Dashboard, and the selected tasks run on each child site you target. Schedules use your Dashboard timezone and are triggered by WP-Cron. Database optimization and deleting all transients can slow a site down for a short time while its cached data is rebuilt.
Maintenance FAQ
Can I schedule database cleanup to run automatically?
Yes, the MainWP Maintenance Extension runs cleanup on a schedule: create one under MainWP > Add-ons > Performance > Maintenance > Schedules, choose its frequency, tasks and target sites, and leave Paused off. You can pause, resume, edit, delete or run any schedule from its row menu in the Schedules table.
Can I keep the most recent post revisions?
Yes, the MainWP Maintenance Extension keeps the newest post revisions with the Except for the last setting. When you turn on Delete all post revisions, set it to the number of revisions to keep on each post. Enter 0 to delete all revisions.
Where do I see what happened on a scheduled run?
The MainWP Maintenance Extension shows each schedule’s status, last run and next run in the Schedules table. Click the Failed status label to open the details for a site where the run ended in an error: MainWP stores the site name, URL and recorded error when that information is available.
Should I back up my sites before running maintenance?
Yes, create a database backup of each site before you run the MainWP Maintenance Extension. Its cleanup tasks delete data from the child site databases.