Trilobita

Installation and Access

I can’t find Post Pruner anywhere in my WordPress admin

Post Pruner adds its page under the Tools menu, not under Posts. If you have activated the plugin but cannot find it, it is likely in a place you have not looked yet.

  1. Go to Plugins > Installed Plugins and confirm Post Pruner is listed and the Activate link is not showing — if it is, click it.
  2. In the left-hand admin menu, click Tools.
  3. Look for Post Pruner in the submenu that appears beneath Tools.

I see “You do not have permission to access this page”

Post Pruner is available to editors and administrators only. If you are logged in as an author or contributor you will not be able to access it, and this is by design. Ask a site administrator to change your user role to Editor or Administrator if you need access.

The plugin activated but the Tools > Post Pruner page shows a blank screen or a fatal error

This usually means your site is running a version of WordPress or PHP that is too old for the plugin.

  1. Go to Dashboard > Updates and check whether a WordPress update is available. Post Pruner requires WordPress 5.8 or later.
  2. Ask your hosting provider to confirm your site is running PHP 7.4 or later.
  3. If both requirements are met, deactivate all other plugins temporarily, then reactivate Post Pruner and visit Tools > Post Pruner again to rule out a plugin conflict.

Posts Not Appearing

The list is empty even though I have old posts on my site

Post Pruner only shows published posts that are at least one year old. Drafts, private posts, scheduled posts, pages, and custom post types do not appear in the free version.

  1. Check that you are on the All (1yr+) tab rather than one of the specific year tabs, which filter to a narrower age range.
  2. Make sure the Age based on toggle is set as expected — switching between Published date and Modified date can change which posts appear in each bucket.
  3. Go to Posts > All Posts, set the status filter to Published, and sort by date to confirm you have posts that are at least one year old.

A post I know is old is not showing up in the correct age tab

Each age tab covers a specific range: the 1 Year tab shows posts between one and two years old, the 2 Years tab shows posts between two and three years old, and so on. A post sits in exactly one tab. If a post is not where you expect it, the active age mode may be the cause — switching from Published date to Modified date changes the age calculation for every post.

  1. Click All (1yr+) to see every post that qualifies regardless of exact age.
  2. Check the Age based on toggle at the top of the page and try the other option to see whether the post appears.
  3. Click the post’s Edit link and check the Published date shown in the editor to confirm how old it actually is.

The post counts on the tabs look wrong

The numbers on each tab are cached for up to five minutes to keep the page fast. If you have just published, trashed, or changed the status of a post elsewhere in WordPress, the counts will update automatically within five minutes without you needing to do anything.

Display and Interface

The “Never updated” badge is showing on a post I have definitely edited

The badge appears when a post’s last modified time is within eight hours of its published time. This covers the common case of auto-saves and minor tidy-ups made immediately after publishing. If you edited a post shortly after it went live and within that eight-hour window, the badge will still show. This is by design — the badge is intended to flag posts that have had no meaningful edit since they were first published.

The Author column shows “(unknown)” for some posts

This happens when the user account that originally published the post has been deleted from WordPress. The post still exists but the author record no longer does.

  • To assign the post to a current user, click Edit in the row and change the author in the post editor.

The Categories column is showing a dash for posts I know are categorised

The Categories column only shows the built-in WordPress Categories taxonomy. Custom taxonomies and tags are not shown here, so posts that are organised only by tags or a custom taxonomy will display a dash. This is by design.

I want to see more or fewer posts per page

Post Pruner respects WordPress’s Screen Options panel, which lets you control how many posts appear on each page.

  1. Go to Tools > Post Pruner.
  2. Click the Screen Options tab in the top-right corner of the screen.
  3. Change the Posts per page value to any number between 1 and 200.
  4. Click Apply.

The age colour bars or badges are not showing

The colour-coded bars and age badges are part of Post Pruner’s stylesheet. If they are missing, a caching or CSS conflict is the most likely cause.

  1. Clear your browser cache and reload the Post Pruner page.
  2. If your site uses a caching plugin, clear the plugin’s cache from its settings page.
  3. If the badges are still missing, deactivate other admin-area plugins one at a time to check for a conflict, reloading the Post Pruner page after each deactivation.

Taking Action on Posts

I clicked Trash and nothing happened

A confirmation dialog appears when you click Trash. If you dismissed it or your browser blocked it, the action will not have gone through.

  1. Hover over the post title to reveal the row actions, then click Trash.
  2. When the confirmation dialog asks “Are you sure you want to move this post to Trash?”, click OK.
  3. If no dialog appears at all, check whether your browser is blocking pop-ups or JavaScript for your site and allow them, then try again.

I see “No posts selected” after trying to act on a post

This message appears when the plugin could not find a valid published post to act on. It can happen if the post was already moved to Trash, set to draft, or changed to private by someone else between the time the page loaded and the time you clicked the action.

  1. Reload the Post Pruner page to get a fresh list.
  2. Check Posts > Trash or Posts > All Posts to find the post and confirm its current status.

I see “This post type is not supported”

The free version of Post Pruner works with standard WordPress posts only. This message means an action was attempted on a page or a custom post type, which is not supported without Post Pruner Pro.

I trashed a post by mistake — can I get it back?

Yes. Post Pruner only ever moves posts to the WordPress Trash — it never permanently deletes them. You have 30 days (by default) to restore a trashed post before WordPress removes it automatically.

  1. Go to Posts > Trash.
  2. Find the post and click Restore.

The row actions (Draft, Private, Trash) are not visible

Row actions in WordPress only appear when you hover your mouse over the post title. They are hidden the rest of the time to keep the table readable.

  1. Move your mouse pointer over the title of the post you want to act on.
  2. The Edit, View, Draft, Private, and Trash links will appear beneath the title.

I want to act on many posts at once but there are no checkboxes

Bulk actions — selecting multiple posts and acting on them all at once — are available in Post Pruner Pro. The free version supports single-post actions only. Visit trilobita.co.uk for more information about Pro.

Age Mode Toggle

I switched between Published date and Modified date but the list did not change

If your posts have never been edited since they were published, the Published date and Modified date are the same, so the list will look identical in both modes. Posts with a “Never updated” badge are a good indicator of this.

My age mode choice keeps resetting when I come back to the page

Your age mode preference is saved to your individual WordPress user account, so it should persist across visits. If it keeps resetting, your browser may be blocking cookies, or a security or privacy plugin may be clearing user preferences.

  1. Check that cookies are enabled in your browser for your WordPress admin.
  2. If you use a security or privacy plugin, check its settings for anything that clears user session data.
  3. Log out of WordPress, log back in, set your preferred mode, and navigate away and back to confirm whether it saves correctly.

The age mode toggle is there but clicking it does not seem to do anything

The currently active mode appears as a filled blue button — clicking it again will not cause any change because it is already selected. Click the other button to switch modes.

Uninstalling the Plugin

Will deleting the plugin remove all its data?

Yes. When you delete Post Pruner through the WordPress Plugins screen, the plugin automatically removes all data it has stored — including the cached post counts and each user’s saved age mode preference. No data is left behind on your site.

I deactivated the plugin — will my data be removed?

Deactivating the plugin does not remove any data. Data is only cleaned up when you go to Plugins > Installed Plugins, click Delete on Post Pruner, and confirm. Your posts themselves are never affected — only Post Pruner’s own stored preferences and cache are removed.