Finding Which Shortcodes are Being Used on Your Child Sites

Plugins and themes can heavily use shortcodes on your child sites. Shortcodes are not a problem, but when you have previously used a plugin for forms, then deactivated and deleted the plugin, but the shortcode is still being used on the site but the plugin is not, it becomes a problem.

There is an easy way to find which shortcodes are being used on your site, by installing and activating the Shortcodes Finder plugin.

After you have installed and activated the plugin if you go to;

Tools > Shortcodes Finder

The window will open a new page related to the plugin, the default tab will be for Find by Shortcode.

Other sections for the plugin settings cover;

• Find by Content
• Test Shortcode
• Find unused Shortcodes

In this example, we will find which page is using the shortcode for Contact Form 7 plugin (no longer being used) and will be replaced with a different form plugin.

From Tools > Shortcode Finder then click on the Find unused Shortcode tab.

Contact-form-7 will show as the top used shortcode. Click to find which page that shortcode is being used on. In this example, the CF7 shortcode is being used on a ‘contact us’ page.

The page which originally had the Contact Form 7 shortcode has had the shortcode removed, then replaced with a shortcode created using Caldera Forms. When you go back to check on the find used shortcodes page in the Shortcode Finder plugins page, contact-form-7 will now not show anymore as an unused shortcode.

The Shortcode Finder plugin gives you an easy way to know which shortcodes are being used on your child site, and a way to find unused shortcodes which still might be saved on pages or posts on your site. When you no longer need the plugin, remember to deactivate the Shortcode Finder plugin on your site.