WordPress is a well-known content management system (CMS) utilized by numerous websites globally. Additionally, one of the fundamental features of WordPress is that visitors can leave their comments on your blog posts, which can offer higher engagement and valuable feedback.
Nevertheless, if you have a considerable number of comments on your WordPress post, handling them can become overwhelming and time-consuming. Luckily, there are several ways to delete bulk comments in WordPress, including using plugins or via MySQL or phpMyAdmin.
WP Delete All Comments – How To Delete Comments In Bulk?
Being a WordPress website owner, you might receive millions of spam comments that can make your website look unprofessional and lower your credibility. In addition, it can also be a tedious task to delete each comment manually. To help you with this, below are some effective ways to delete bulk comments, including spam, approved, and pending comments.
Method 1: Using a Plugin
There are many plugins accessible in the WordPress repository that can assist you in deleting bulk comments. Below are the steps you must follow to delete bulk WordPress comments using a plugin.
Step 1: Install and activate the WordPress Bulk Delete plugin
The most effortless way to delete bulk WordPress comments is by installing a plugin. And one of the most well-known plugins for this purpose is Bulk Delete, free in WordPress storage.
To install the Bulk Delete plugin, proceed to your WordPress dashboard and tap on “Plugins” > “Add New.” Next, in the search tab, enter “Bulk Delete,” and the plugin appears in the search tab. Tap “Install Now,” then “Activate” to activate the WordPress plugin.
Step 2: Set up the Bulk Delete settings
Once you activate the plugin, you can access its settings by tapping on ”Bulk WP” > “Bulk Delete” from the WordPress dashboard dropdown menu.
After clicking on the dropdown menu, you can choose the comments you wish to delete.
Next, you will notice many options to assist you in filtering the comments you wish to delete, such as pending, only spam, or approved comments. In addition, you can also specify a date range to only delete comments published within a specific time frame.
Step 3: Review and delete the comments
Before deleting any WordPress comments, it is rational to review them to ensure you only delete the comments you want to remove. And to accomplish this, tap on the “Preview” button at the bottom of the settings tab. It will display a list of all the comments that fit your chosen filters.
After reviewing the list, you can move to delete the comments by tapping on the “Delete” button and clicking “OK.”
Step 4: Clear all data after the deletion
After the deletion process, you may see that your WordPress database still holds some data linked to the deleted comments. To clear this data and optimize your database, you can utilize a free plugin, WP-Optimize.
To activate and install the plugin, head to “Plugins” > “Add New” and search for “WP-Optimize.” Next, install and activate the plugin, then proceed to “WP-Optimize” > “Database” from the WordPress dashboard.
Tap on the “Run all selected optimizations” tab to optimize your WordPress database and clear all the excess data from the deleted comments.
Method 2: Use MySQL or phpMyAdmin
If you wish to use a more direct approach to delete your bulk WordPress comments, you can use MySQL or phpMyAdmin. Below are the steps you can follow for the same:
Step 1: Backup your WordPress comment database
Before deleting your WordPress comments, it is essential to back up your WordPress database to avoid deleting important comments. In addition, you can access your web hosting account and tap on “cPanel.” Next, from the cPanel, find the “phpMyAdmin” button and tap on it. Upon entering the phpMyAdmin panel, pick your WordPress database from the left-hand side.
After this, tap the “Export” tab on the main menu bar. Choose the “Quick” option and pick all tables. Tap the “Go” button, and save your WordPress database in your SQL file.
Step 2: Delete all WordPress comments using MySQL
MySQL is a complimentary database management system widely utilized by WordPress website owners to handle their databases. And to delete all comments using MySQL, you can follow the steps below.
- Access the WordPress database
To access the WordPress database, proceed to your web hosting account and click on the cPanel. From here, locate the “phpMyAdmin” option and click on it. Once the phpMyAdmin panel opens, select your WordPress database.
- Run SQL query
In the phpMyAdmin panel, tap on the “SQL” tab on the top menu. Here, you can execute SQL queries on your WordPress database by entering the below SQL query:
DELETE FROM wp_comments WHERE 1=1
Once you have input the query, tap on the “Go” button. It will delete all comments from your WordPress website.
Step 3: Delete all comments using phpMyAdmin
PhpMyAdmin is a free web-based instrument that lets website owners handle their databases using a GUI (Graphical User Interface). And to delete all WordPress comments using phpMyAdmin, follow the steps below:
- Access the database
To access your WordPress database with the help of phpMyAdmin, log in to your web hosting account and tap on “cPanel.” From here, locate the “phpMyAdmin” option and click on it. Once the phpMyAdmin panel opens, select your WordPress database.
- Choose the comments table
In the phpMyAdmin panel, find the “wp_comments” table and tap on it. It will show all the comments on your WordPress website.
- Delete comments
To delete all your WordPress comments, select all the comments by tapping on the checkbox at the top-left corner. Next, click on the “With selected” option in the dropdown menu, choose “Delete,” and click on the “Yes” button.
Conclusion:
In a nutshell, deleting comments in bulk is a fast and effortless way to clean up your WordPress site and enhance its performance. Moreover, by using the Bulk Delete or WP-Optimize plugin, you can quickly clear pending, spam, or approved comments and optimize your database to keep your website operating smoothly.
However, it is always better to double-check before you delete any comments and ensure you have a website backup before making any significant modifications.