Clean up WordPress autoload

The problem: Too many autoloaded options

WordPress loads all options with each page load autoload='yes' from the database. With 546 autoloaded options with a total size of 960 KB, each request is unnecessarily slowed down.

Attention: WordPress does not clean up autoload options by itself – that means you have to do it yourself!

Here I show how to solve the problem.

Conduct analysis

Automatically extract MySQL credentials

# SSH connection ssh user@server # To WordPress directory cd /home/domain.com/public_html # Extract credentials from wp-config.php DB_NAME=$(grep DB_NAME wp-config.php | cut -d "'" -f 4) DB_USER=$(grep DB_USER wp-config.php | cut -d "'" -f 4) DB_PASS=$(grep DB_PASSWORD wp-config.php | cut -d "'" -f 4) DB_HOST=$(grep DB_HOST wp-config.php | cut -d "'" -f 4 | cut -d':' -f1) PREFIX=$(grep table_prefix wp-config.php | cut -d "'" -f 2)

Check status

mysql -u$DB_USER -p$DB_PASS -h$DB_HOST $DB_NAME -e " SELECT COUNT(*) as 'Number of Options', ROUND(SUM(LENGTH(option_value))/1024,2) as 'Size (KB)' FROM ${PREFIX}options WHERE autoload='yes';"

Perform cleanup

1. Create a backup (critical!)

mysqldump -u$DB_USER -p$DB_PASS -h$DB_HOST $DB_NAME ${PREFIX}options > \ /tmp/options_backup_$(date +%Y%m%d_%H%M%S).sql

2. Clean up transients

Transients should never be autoloaded:

mysql -u$DB_USER -p$DB_PASS -h$DB_HOST $DB_NAME -e " UPDATE ${PREFIX}options SET autoload='no' WHERE option_name LIKE '%_transient_%' AND autoload='yes'; DELETE FROM ${PREFIX}options WHERE option_name LIKE '%_transient_timeout_%' AND option_value < UNIX_TIMESTAMP();"

3. Plugin-specific cleanup

mysql -u$DB_USER -p$DB_PASS -h$DB_HOST $DB_NAME << EOF -- Logs and debug data UPDATE ${PREFIX}options SET autoload='no' WHERE option_name LIKE '%_log%' OR option_name LIKE '%_debug_%'; -- cache entries UPDATE ${PREFIX}options SET autoload='no' WHERE option_name LIKE '%_cache_%'; -- Elementor assets (regenerated when needed) UPDATE ${PREFIX}options SET autoload='no' WHERE option_name IN ('_elementor_assets_data', 'elementor-custom-breakpoints-files'); -- WooCommerce Payment Gateways (only needed at checkout) UPDATE ${PREFIX}options SET autoload='no' WHERE option_name LIKE 'woocommerce_stripe_%_settings' OR option_name LIKE 'woocommerce_fkwcs_%'; -- Cron (can be set to 'no') UPDATE ${PREFIX}options SET autoload='no' WHERE option_name = 'cron'; EOF

4. Deactivate empty options

mysql -u$DB_USER -p$DB_PASS -h$DB_HOST $DB_NAME -e " UPDATE ${PREFIX}options SET autoload='no' WHERE autoload='yes' AND LENGTH(option_value) = 0 AND option_name NOT IN ('WPLANG','upload_path','category_base','tag_base');"

Set up automatic maintenance

Create maintenance script

# Scripts directory outside web root mkdir -p /home/domain.com/scripts chmod 750 /home/domain.com/scripts cat > /home/domain.com/scripts/autoload_maintenance.sh << 'EOF' #!/bin/bash WP_PATH="/home/domain.com/public_html" cd $WP_PATH # Extract DB Credentials DB_NAME=$(grep DB_NAME wp-config.php | cut -d "'" -f 4) DB_USER=$(grep DB_USER wp-config.php | cut -d "'" -f 4) DB_PASS=$(grep DB_PASSWORD wp-config.php | cut -d "'" -f 4) DB_HOST=$(grep DB_HOST wp-config.php | cut -d "'" -f 4 | cut -d':' -f1) PREFIX=$(grep table_prefix wp-config.php | cut -d "'" -f 2) # cleanup mysql -u$DB_USER -p$DB_PASS -h$DB_HOST $DB_NAME -e " DELETE FROM ${PREFIX}options WHERE option_name LIKE '%_transient_%' AND autoload='yes'; UPDATE ${PREFIX}options SET autoload='no' WHERE option_name LIKE '%_log%' AND autoload='yes';" # Clear cache rm -rf $WP_PATH/wp-content/cache/* rm -rf $WP_PATH/wp-content/litespeed/* EOF chmod +x /home/domain.com/scripts/autoload_maintenance.sh

Set up a cron job

# Weekly execution (crontab -l 2>/dev/null; echo "0 4 * * 0 /home/domain.com/scripts/autoload_maintenance.sh") | crontab -

Results

In my practical test I was able to use the autoloaded options from:

• 546 Options (960 KB) on
• 208 Options (3.07 KB) reduce

This corresponds to a 98% Reduction of the amount of data.

Important instructions

Security

• Never save scripts in the public_html directory
• Always create a backup before making changes
• In case of errors: mysql -u$DB_USER -p$DB_PASS -h$DB_HOST $DB_NAME < /tmp/options_backup_*.sql

compatibility

• Tested with CyberPanel/OpenLiteSpeed
• WordPress 6.x compatible
• WooCommerce-specific optimizations included

Performance benchmark

Test # loading time before/after optimization for i in {1..5}; do curl -o /dev/null -s -w "Test $i: %{time_total}s\n" https://domain.com done

Recommended limits

• Optimal: < 100 autoloaded options, < 100 KB
• Acceptable: < 200 options, < 800 KB
• Problematic: > 300 options or > 1 MB

With 3 KB of autoloaded data, performance optimization is maximized – fewer options mean less PHP array processing with each WordPress request.