How to Bulk Delete WordPress Posts & Pages Safely (Without Breaking Your Site)

Running a WooCommerce store means your WordPress backend fills up fast, product drafts, seasonal pages, coupon landing pages, abandoned funnels, import leftovers, and test content from when you were “just trying something quickly.”

That clutter isn’t harmless. It slows down work, buries important pages, makes your dashboard harder to navigate, and in some cases, even confuses Google and your team.

And deleting one item at a time?

That stops working the moment your site crosses the “I have 200+ content pieces” mark.

This guide gives you the fastest, safest way to bulk delete WordPress posts and pages, without breaking your site or losing important data.

We’ll cover both:

• WordPress bulk delete post and pages without any plugin
• WordPress bulk delete post and pages with sheet editor plugin

Why delete posts and pages in WordPress?

Sometimes content just stops helping your store. It may not be wrong, it’s just no longer useful. You should delete content when:

• It talks about products, features or offers you don’t sell anymore.
• You changed your brand direction for the brand’s online presence – to rank in AI overviews.
• You have similar blogs or pages competing with each other (bad for search + AI answers).
• Old campaign pages still show up and confuse shoppers with expired deals.
• Pages get no traffic, no clicks, and serve no business purpose anymore.
• Test pages, demo content and drafts were left behind after experiments.
• Old content creates wrong expectations and support questions (“Do you still do this”)
• Old posts slow down admin search and make your dashboard harder to manage.

WordPress bulk delete best practices

And here is a simple checklist to delete safely:

• Check if the page still supports your current products or sales funnel.
• See if it gets any traffic or backlinks before removing, redirect if needed.
• Remove internal links to it so customers don’t hit dead pages.
• Deleting pages can cause 404 errors hurting SEO so make sure to combine deletion with automatic 301 redirects to relevant content.
• Write down which URLs you’re deleting in case you need to restore or redirect later.
• Make sure pages aren’t using shared images or blocks used on live pages.
• If you’re unsure, set the page to draft or no-index first, then decide later.
• If deleting a lot, test a small batch first to ensure nothing breaks.
• After bulk delete, clear cache and clean database junk (old revisions, orphan data).

How to delete WordPress posts and pages (in-built option)?

If you’re only removing a few pages or cleaning small content, WordPress gives you a simple delete option.

How to delete a post in WordPress?

Here’s how you can delete WordPress posts without plugin:

1. Log in to your WordPress account.
2. On the admin dashboard, navigate to Posts > All Posts and hover over the post you want to delete.
3. Click on Trash.

That’s it — your post is now moved to the Trash. You can restore it later from the Trash tab or delete it permanently.

How to delete a page in WordPress?

Deleting pages works the exact same way:

1. Go to Pages > All Pages.
2. Hover over the page you want to remove and click Trash.

Now here’s the thing — this is great for a few cleanup tasks.

But if you’ve got dozens (or hundreds) of old posts, test pages, or dead content cluttering your site, you need bulk edit options.

So now let’s see how to delete multiple posts on WordPress bulk delete tool.

How to bulk delete WordPress posts without plugin?

Here’s how to delete posts in bulk from WordPress dashboard:

Bulk delete WordPress posts

1. Go to Posts > All Posts.
2. Tick the checkboxes for posts you want to delete
3. Check the boxes next to the posts you want to bulk delete.
4. Open Bulk actions.
5. Select Move to Trash.
6. Click on Apply.
7. The posts are then automatically moved to the trash section, from where they can be restored or permanently deleted if needed.

Bulk delete pages in WordPress

And how to delete WordPress pages quickly? Well, follow the same steps as above. Just replace the ‘Posts’ with ‘Pages’.

How to permanently delete a page or post?

Moving a post or page to Trash doesn’t remove it completely, it only hides it from your live site.

To erase it completely from your database:

1. Go to your WordPress Dashboard
2. Click Pages or Posts (depending on what you want to remove)
3. Click the Trash tab at the top of the screen
4. Hover over the title of the content you want to erase
5. Click Delete Permanently.

That’s it, the item is completely removed from your site’s database.

Tip: If you’re deleting multiple posts permanently, use Shift + Click to select them in bulk before choosing “Delete Permanently.”

Additional tips

While using default method, you can also try these two things to make you your job easy and have better control:

By default, WordPress lists around 20 posts or pages per screen. You can change this. Enter a higher number (like 50 or 100) in”Number of items per page”.

Now you can delete even more pages in bulk.

Next, if you’re only removing specific content, like “Black Friday pages” or “Test posts,” use the search box at the top-right.

It filters your list instantly so you only bulk-select the items you actually want to remove.

But even with these tweaks, the default WordPress delete option has limits:

• You can only delete what’s visible on the screen
• You can’t filter deeply (by author, status, date, tags, etc.)
• You can’t preview or sort large batches safely
• Performance drops when handling hundreds of items
• Remove or assign categories in bulk

If you have hundreds of posts, category pages, outdated campaigns, or old product landing pages, this method becomes slow, repetitive, and easy to make mistakes with.

So what’s the solution? Well, let’s talk about that in the next section.

Bulk delete WordPress posts and pages with sheet editor plugin

When you’re dealing with a large WordPress or WooCommerce site, you don’t just want to delete content, you want to see everything, filter correctly, and clean without missing anything.

A sheet-style editor plugin like Smart Manager can help you do exactly that.

It gives you a single screen where you can:

• bulk edit almost anything
• view all posts and pages together
• search and filter by date, author, status, category, or title
• select only what you want to remove
• and delete in a controlled way

This way, you’re not guessing what will be deleted, you’re reviewing everything in one place and taking action with confidence.

How to bulk delete WordPress posts with Smart Manager?

1. Install and activate Smart Manager
2. Go to Smart Manager from your WordPress dashboard
3. Choose what you want to clean:
   • Posts (blog articles)
   • Pages
   • Products (WooCommerce)
   • Coupons, Orders, Users, etc.
4. Use the search or filters (date, status, author, category, title) to find the content you want to delete.
5. Select the rows you want to remove.
6. Click on the Delete icon. It will show two options- Move to Trash and Delete Permanently. Choose your desired option.
7. Click Save to confirm.

Note: ‘Move to Trash’ and ‘Delete Permanently’ for more than 50 records at once are available in Smart Manager Pro version only.

Bulk delete smarter, not harder with Smart Manager

Alright, let’s talk about real store-owner problems.

Because deleting a blog or page is one thing. But when you’re managing hundreds (or thousands) of product pages, landing pages, review drafts, or expired deals… clicking “Trash” one-by-one just doesn’t cut it.

Luckily, Smart Manager lets you filter by title, status, stock, tags, categories, post date, custom fields, even author — and delete in bulk.

Let’s see what that looks like:

Bulk delete posts by status and date

Let’s say, you’ve got 200+ posts saved as Drafts that were created this year — most are test content, outdated ideas, or forgotten promos.

How to delete with Smart Manager:

• Select Posts dashboard.
• Click on Bulk edit.
• Now use these rules:
  • Post Status > is > Draft.
  • Post Date > 1 Jan 2025.
  • Post Date > 31 Dec 2025.
• Click on Search. You can now see all those posts.
• Simply select them and click on the Delete icon.
• It will show two options – Move to Trash and Delete Permanently. Choose your desired option.
• Click Save to apply the changes.

Try Smart Manager live demo

Bulk delete expired seasonal sale pages

You ran separate landing pages for Christmas, Valentine’s Day, and New Year’s sales last year. They’re no longer relevant, and you want to prepare space for new campaigns.

So you can delete them using filters: Post title > contains > Christmas (for example). Keep on adding rules for all the events. And then delete them all.

Bulk delete listings by specific authors

Let’s say you hired a third-party vendor or freelancer last year who uploaded 100+ product listings or blogs under their name. The content didn’t perform, the vendor’s long gone — and those posts are just… there.

You can delete them using this filter: Author > == > vendor_john (or whatever username was used)

Bulk delete outdated posts or pages

You’ve got a bunch of old pages titled “Test Page,” “Demo Content,” or posts still stuck in Draft or Private status.

They’re not useful anymore — just dead weight.

Here’s how you can clean them up with search filters:

• Post Title > is > “Test” or “Demo”
• Post Status > is > Draft / Private

Select the post and get rid of them.

Bulk delete products by post tag

Let’s say you tagged some pages or posts as “clearance,” “event,” or “temporary” during a promo or while testing something.

Now that the purpose is over, those posts or pages are just clutter.

Use this filter in Smart Manager:

• Post Tag > equals > clearance

Repeat this for any other tag you used for temporary content.

Bulk delete posts with no content or broken descriptions

You know the type — imported posts that never got filled in, drafts with just a title, or ancient lorem ipsum still hanging around like digital cobwebs.

Use these filters to clear the junk:

• Post Content > is > empty
• Post Content > contains > Lorem ipsum

Great for cleaning up broken pages, incomplete blog ideas, or placeholders that were “just for now” (two years ago).

Bulk delete posts based on category

Let’s say you had a blog category like “Handmade cards” that’s no longer relevant.

The posts under that category? Outdated, off-brand, and just taking up space.

Use this filter in Smart Manager:

• Category > equals > Handmade cards

Hit Search, select the posts, and click Delete.

Bulk delete anything and everything with Smart Manager

From blogs to users, here’s a quick snapshot of what Smart Manager lets you clean up in bulk:

• WooCommerce products: Filter by stock status, price, or category
• Orders: Delete test or outdated orders by status or date
• Coupons: Remove expired or unused discount codes
• Users: Clean out spam accounts or inactive roles
• Media files: Get rid of old uploads, broken images, or unused files

Smart Manager: more than just bulk delete

Smart Manager isn’t just about bulk editing and deleting—it’s packed with powerful features that make managing your WooCommerce store effortless.

• Use inline editing to edit fields easily in the spreadsheet. Create, remove, or update many items at once directly from the grid.
• Using the duplicate feature, you can make a copy of all records or selected records.
• Easily export unlimited CSV data based on date, search or columns at any time.
• Set up custom views with data that you want to manage and edit frequently.
• Control and add dashboard access to any user role and specific user email.
• Bulk stock management helps you update stock quantities, and set and modify sales and regular prices.
• Smart Manager makes bookings, product add-ons, and memberships easy to work with. Use the same Excel-like interface to view, manage and bulk edit all custom post types and custom taxonomies.
• Updating featured images, and product gallery images using the media library directly from the spreadsheet.
• Deleting and duplicating based on filters such as test products, permanently and moving to trash.

Click, click… gone

Deleting unused pages or posts isn’t about “cleanup”, it’s about keeping your site fast, accurate, and easy to manage.

Use the default WordPress option for small updates.

For large cleanups, try Smart Manager. gives you a full view to search, filter, and delete in seconds without risking important data.

Get Smart Manager plugin today

FAQ

1. Can I undo a bulk delete in WordPress?

   Yes. If you’ve just moved items to Trash, you can restore them anytime from the Trash tab under Posts or Pages. But once you click “Delete Permanently,” it’s gone for good, unless you have a backup.

2. Will bulk deleting posts or pages affect my SEO rankings?

   It can, if those pages have backlinks or still get traffic. Always check analytics and set 301 redirects to relevant pages before deleting. If the content is outdated or duplicate, deleting can actually improve SEO.

3. Can I bulk delete custom post types in WordPress?

   Yes, you can. Tools like Smart Manager let you delete any post type, products, coupons, orders, even users, from one spreadsheet-like view.

4. What should I do after bulk deleting WordPress posts or pages?

   Clear cache, clean your database, and submit updated sitemaps to Google Search Console to ensure smooth crawling and no broken links.

5. Can WordPress remove your website?
   No, WordPress cannot delete your site. More about it here.