About this plugin
Clean expired transients from your options table. The original and best!
8. However, I have decided to open up this plugin to all versions to allow for manual transient cleaning. Longer term I am working on a new version of the plugin, designed specifically for all WordPress releases.
- Tested up to PHP 8.2
- Fully complies with WordPress coding standards
- Compliant with the stronger WordPress VIP coding standards, as well as compatibility with their platform
- Community plugin – visit the Github page to get involved with the latest code development, request enhancements and report issues
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Unfortunately, expired transients only get deleted when you attempt to access them. If you don’t access the transient then, even though it’s expired, WordPress will not remove it. This is a known “issue” but due to reasons, which are explained in the FAQ, this has not been adequately resolved.
Why is this a problem? Transients are often used by plugins to “cache” data (my own plugins included). Because of this it means that expired data can be left and build up, resulting in a bloated database table.
Meantime, this plugin is the hero that you’ve been waiting for. Simply activate the plugin, sit back and enjoy a much cleaner, smaller options table. It also adds the additional recommendation that after a database upgrade all transients will be cleared down.
The Settings Screen
Within Administration -> Tools -> Transients an options screen exists allowing you to tweak when you’d like cleaning to happen, including the ability to perform an ad-hoc run, and when you’d like the to be automatically scheduled.
You can even request an optimization of the options table to give your system a real “pep”!
Running in Lite mode
A “lite” mode is available. By activating this the options screen will no longer appear and default settings will be used. The advantage?
Improved performance to Admin and, especially if you’re running multi-site, no chance of anybody “tinkering” with the settings.
To activate, use the following…
define( 'TC_LITE', true );
php file.
Using hooks
) then I’ve added a couple of hooks so you can call our rather neat cleaning functions…
- housekeep_transients – this will clear down any expired transients
- clear_all_transients – this will remove any and all transients, expired or otherwise
Acknowledgements
I’d like to thank WordPress Developer Andrew Nacin for his early discussion on this. com for the cleaning code.
Iconography is courtesy of the very talented Janki Rathod.