Clean Up Download permissions

Hi there,

Just to check: What tool did you use to clear the download permissions?

With that said, the only thing that immediately comes to mind is to keep database backup on hand where you can compare the download permissions from one day to the next.

Hey, thanks for the reply.

I have been using Woocommerce -> Status -> Tools

Used-up download permissions

This tool will delete expired download permissions and permissions with 0 remaining downloads.

I don’t see how a database backup would work for this. I would have to load the correct back up somewhere else each time when something like this came up. All that trouble would not be very realistic.

Just saying, would be nice to clean up expired downloads, but still keep download data, when/if and how many times the customers downloaded the item. Maybe this is not possible. Just to have proof the customer downloaded the item(s).

Hi there,

While I understand how it could be important to keep track of that data, at the moment it looks like each entry in the wp_woocommerce_downloadable_product_permissions table includes the product/order/user info along with the access_granted, access_expires, downloads_remaining, and download_count info on a single record. The “Clean up download permissions” tool just runs a database command that deletes all lines from that table where the downloads are either used up or expired. So if you run into those types of situations often and need to check that data, then it would be best not to run that tool.

On the other hand, if you don’t come across situations like that often, then the best way would be to keep regular backups as mentioned (which is a good practice in general anyway), and then restore them to a staging site whenever you are in this situation and need to check the old/deleted data.

I hope that helps! Have a wonderful day!