WordPress Plugins For Managing WordPress Post Revisions

In this tutorial, we look at a number of WordPress plugins that will help you manage your post revisions.

WordPress Plugins For Managing WordPress Post Revisions

WordPress Plugins For Managing WordPress Post Revisions

In a separate tutorial, we looked at the WordPress Post Revisions feature, where WordPress saves all your post revisions, so you can always go back to an earlier version of what you have written and restore it.

In this tutorial, we look at a number of WordPress plugins that will help you manage your post revisions.

Revision Management Plugins

As soon as you create, edit, and update your pages/posts, WordPress begins to store new post revisions in its database. These appear in a Revisions section at the bottom of the page editor …

The WordPress post revisions list

(Revisions list)

Having autosave and revisions is very useful. If you write or edit often, however, over time the revisions can start to build up. This can significantly grow the size of your WordPress database, so it’s important to also be able to manage your revisions.

Post revisions can really add up after a while

(Post revisions can really add up after a while)

For example, if there are 10 posts published on your site and each post has 5 revisions you could be storing an extra 500 copies of unnecessary data. If your post averages 100KB data, then with 500 revisions, the total space wasted is about 50MB.

The good news is that there are a number of WordPress plugins to help you manage your revisions and reduce the size of your database. Let’s take a look at a few:

Better Delete Revision

Better Delete Revision WP Plugin

(Better Delete Revision – WordPress Plugin)

This plugin removes redundant post revisions from your database and other revision-related content like tags, relationships, meta data, and more.

After the plugin has been installed and activated, Better Delete Revision can perform optimizations on your database without having to log into your server.

In the Dashboard menu, choose Settings > Better Delete Revision

Better Delete Revision - Settings

(Better Delete Revision – Settings)

This brings you to the Better Delete Revision Manager area. Click the ‘Check Revision Posts’ button to calculate the number of redundant post revisions can be deleted from the WP database …

Better Delete Revision - Check Revision Posts

(Better Delete Revision – Check Revision Posts)

A list of revisions stored in your database will be returned on the screen …

Posts revisions list

(Posts revisions – Better Delete Revision Manager)

Click on ‘Yes, I would like to delete them! …’ to clear all list items from your WordPress database, or cancel the task and exit the Better Delete Revision Manager screen …

Clear posts revisions list - Better Delete Revision Manager

(Remove posts revisions list)

The unnecessary post revisions will be deleted from your database …

Better Delete Revision - Revisions list deleted

(Post revisions list removed)

Useful Tip

As WordPress automatically saves your revisions, the process will automatically begin again. After a while and depending on the number of posts you have published on your website and their associated post revisions, we recommend running the tool again to keep your database as light as possible …

Revisions automatically start again!

(WordPress will automatically begin saving all revisions again!)

Like the other plugins described in this section, you can also use Better Delete Revisions to optimize the site’s database …

Better Delete Revision - Keep the site's database optimized

(Optimize your WordPress database – Better Delete Revision)

Better Delete Revision checks to see if your database needs optimization and provides a one-click table optimization function without requiring you to log into your hosting control panel …

Better Delete Revision lets you perform a one-click database optimization routine

(Better Delete Revision checks if the database needs optimization)

For more details, go here: Better Delete Revision Plugin

Optimize Database after Deleting Revisions

Optimize Database after Deleting Revisions

(Optimize Database after Deleting Revisions)

This plugin is similar to the one described above. It not only lets you prune unnecessary revisions of posts and pages (it also lets you keep a specific number of the most recent revisions) and checks if your WordPress database tables need to be optimized, it also lets you perform the following maintenance tasks:

  • Delete trashed posts, pages, and comments
  • Delete unused tags
  • Delete ’orphan postmeta items’
  • Exclude selected posts/pages and tables from cleaning and optimization
  • Create a log file of the optimizations
  • And more!

Optimize Database after Deleting Revisions Plugin For WordPress - Settings Panel

(Optimize Database after Deleting Revisions Plugin – Settings)

For more details, go here: Optimize Database after Deleting Revisions WordPress Plugin

WP Optimize

WP Optimize WordPress Plugin

(WP-Optimize Plugin)

In addition to deleting redundant page and post revisions and checking if the WP database tables need to be optimized, this plugin also lets you perform the following:

  • Enable/Disable trackbacks for published posts
  • Remove trashed comments
  • Mobile device friendly (optimize your site anywhere, anytime)
  • Removal of all trackbacks and pingbacks
  • Clear out post trash
  • Ability to retain data from selected number of weeks when cleaning up
  • Add or remove link on WP admin bar
  • Enable/Disable weekly optimization scheduling
  • See database table statistics
  • E-mail notifications on automatic cleanups
  • Displays potentially dangerous cleanup options in red
  • And more!

WP-Optimize Plugin For WordPress - Settings Page

(WP-Optimize Plugin For WordPress – Settings Panel)

For more details, go here: WP-Optimize WP Plugin

WP Sweep

WP-Sweep Plugin

(WP Sweep Plugin For WordPress)

In addition to optimizing your database tables and deleting unnecessary revisions, WP-Sweep also cleans up:

  • Auto drafts
  • Deleted comments
  • Orphaned term relationships
  • Duplicated post meta
  • Transient options
  • And more!

WP-Sweep - WordPress Plugin Settings

(WPSweep Plugin For WordPress – Settings)

For more details, go here: WP-Sweep WP Plugin

Simple Revisions Delete

Simple Revisions Delete
Simple Revisions Delete – WordPress plugin

This lightweight and simple-to-use plugin lets you purge (delete) your posts revisions either individually or all at once.

Once the plugin has been installed and activated, for example, a ‘Purge’ link appears next to the Revisions section in your Publish box (and in other sections of your admin area) allowing you to safely delete revisions.

Publish box - Revisions: Purge link.
Click the Purge link to delete post revisions from your WordPress database.

For more details, go here: Simple Revisions Delete

WP REVISIONS CONTROL

WP Revisions Control
WP Revisions Control

This plugin lets you specify the number of revisions retained for each post type in the Settings > Writing screen.

WP Revisions Control Settings
WP Revisions Control Settings.

For more details, go here: WP Revisions Control

For more plugins that can help you manage post revisions and optimize your WP database, go to Plugins > Add New and type in keywords like “Revisions“, “Optimize Database“, etc …

Plugins Menu - Add New Plugins

(Add New Plugins – WordPress Plugins Menu)

We hope that you have found the above information on plugins that will help you manage your WordPress post revisions useful.

WordPress Plugins For Managing WordPress Post Revisions

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Originally published as WordPress Plugins For Managing WordPress Post Revisions.