No way to mass delete users?

You could do it from the DB itself using phpmyadmin – in the table wp_users you can delete how many users you want.

What about orphans? I notice that a significant amount of data is in the user_meta table. Always felt this was very inefficient but that’s for another day.

You can use this query to find orphans.

SELECT *
FROM wp_usermeta
WHERE user_id NOT IN
(SELECT ID FROM wp_users)

Then replace “select” with “delete”.

Be sure to backup your DB before making any change!

Thanks – I don’t think there will be an easy way. Took me an hour to make sure the user table was pared. Now the usermeta search shows over 1 million entries. Will probably need to perform queries on smaller bits of data… There has to be a better way than this. WP needs to make this more efficient.

Well,

just to make it clear – first step is to mass delete the users you don’t want. Then, Run this query – it shows you only the entries that dont have users attached to them, so it should be safe to remove all of them – just replace the “select” with “delete”.

There is not an easier way, at least not that i know…

I had to do it the other way around. I ran the query for the users that remained. Saved the table. Then I truncated the entire table and imported the users back. Unfortunately the WP meta user’s table is, IMHO, a total nightmare that has never been properly addressed. Many thanks for the help and confirming that what I saw online would actually work. Scary to perform this kind of surgery otherwise. ??