Using Tools & Maintenance
Tools & Maintenance is the sitewide housekeeping screen for content fixes, media cleanup, cache and database care, form audits, and site health checks. You need an administrator account to open it.
Open the page
- Log in to the WordPress admin.
- Go to Dirigible → Tools & Maintenance.
- The page title is Site Tools & Maintenance.
Tools are grouped into five categories: Content gardening, Media, Forms, Database & cache, and Site health. Each card shows a short description before you run it.
Batch settings (top of the page)
Use these before long content runs:
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Delay between items (ms) | Pause after each post finishes (default 500). Raise it if saves time out. |
| Posts per API page | How many posts load per list request (max 100). All matching posts still run. |
| Post types | Which published types to include. Use Select all / Deselect all. |
These settings mainly apply to content-gardening batch tools. One-shot tools like Flush transients ignore the post-type list.
How to run a tool
- Pick the category that matches your goal.
- On the card, set any options (preview, age filters, confirmations).
- Click Run, Scan, Generate CSV, or Refresh — the button label matches the tool.
- Watch the log for results, edit links, and downloads.
- Use Stop if you need to halt a long batch.
Safe patterns
- Scan-only tools only list problems — they do not change content.
- Preview then apply tools (Find & replace, Fix broken image references) show matches first.
- Destructive tools (Orphaned metadata cleanup, Spam & trashed comment purge, Delete unused image sizes, Forms cleanup, and similar) warn that there is no undo. Scan, confirm, and take a backup when asked.
Guides by category
| Category | Guide |
|---|---|
| Content gardening | Content gardening tools |
| Media | Media maintenance tools |
| Database & cache | Database and cache tools |
| Forms | Forms tools |
| Site health | Site health tools |
Related workflows
- Alt text in the library: Writing alt text for images — then Sync alt tags here when blocks are stale.
- Permalink moves: Changing permalinks and Redirection — use Redirect CSV generator to build a Redirection CSV.
- Yoast migration lives on Dirigible → Tools, not this page — see Edit SEO for a page.