Delete All Post Revisions from the Database

Shared by Jainil Nagar · October 7, 2026

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#WP-CLI

Revisions silently bloat the database on content-heavy sites. Safe to run – revisions are regenerated automatically as you edit.

Steps to use:

Run the first command to see the count
Run the delete command – --force bypasses the trash (revisions can’t be trashed anyway)
Run the count again to confirm it returns 0

Note: If you have thousands of revisions, the delete command may time out. In that case run it in batches: add --posts_per_page=500 to the list command and repeat.

# See how many revisions exist before deleting
wp post list --post_type=revision --format=count

# Delete all revisions
wp post delete $(wp post list --post_type=revision --format=ids) --force

# Verify they're gone
wp post list --post_type=revision --format=count

Tested on

WordPress 7.1

Reported by the author on October 7, 2026. WPFolks has not verified this.

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Amit Dholiya @amitdholiya 6 days ago

This is used to clean up post revisions via WP-CLI to shrink a bloated database. Handy tip to run the count first, and use the batch option if you have thousands of revisions.
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Delete All Post Revisions from the Database

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