How to Bulk Delete Users in WordPress
A WordPress site that’s overrun with spam users can be a nightmare to clean up, especially if you’re running BuddyPress.
Spam updates flood your activity stream and dashboard with nonsensical comments (I’m very pleased to uncover this site. I want to thank you for your time just for this wonderful read!!), and your real users become lost in the chaos.
The spammers’ prime objective is to take control of your WordPress site and drain your server of resources in order to illegally promote other websites. So as soon as you see this happening, it’s a good idea to quickly find and delete any spam users registered on your site.
In today’s Weekend WordPress Project, I’ll show you simple ways to bulk delete spam users.
Bulk Deleting Users
By default, the Users section in the backend of WordPress only displays 20 users. What you may not know is that you can change how many users display at a time using the Screen Options tab, which is located in the top right of the page.
When you click on Screen Option, settings will display, allowing you to change the numbers of users you want to see and which of their details you want to display.
You can bulk delete users by adjusting the number displayed to 200 rather than 20. Doing this will allow you to delete several hundred users at a time rather than 20 at a time.
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While this is a great method if you only have hundreds of users to delete, you may need to use a plugin to bulk delete users if you have several thousand spamming your site.
One such plugin is the aptly named Bulk Delete, which allows you to delete users, posts, pages, and meta fields based on different conditions and filters. This plugin makes it quick and easy to get rid of unwanted users.
Prevention is better than cure, as the saying goes. Installing spam blocking plugins when you launch a site will help stop spam, and ensure you don’t have to deal with being overrun with spam users.
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Raelene Morey Raelene is the Founder of Words By Birds, a digital writing agency that works with startups, SaaS, B2B, and WordPress businesses on turning tech speak into words that convert. She was formerly the managing editor at WPMU DEV. A computer science grad turned newspaper journalist, when she’s not taming browser tabs, she likes brunching and bushwalking.