Description
Post Pruner adds a screen under Posts > Post Pruner that groups your published posts by age so you can quickly find and act on stale content.
Age buckets — browse posts that are 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5+ years old, or view all aging content at once.
Sortable dates — sort by the date a post was created or the date it was last modified, so you can find posts that have never been updated.
Age mode toggle — choose whether age is calculated from the post’s published date or its last modified date. Preference is saved per user.
Never updated badge — posts that have not been edited since they were published are flagged with a “Never updated” badge in the Modified column.
Single-post actions — edit, set to draft, set to private, or trash any post directly from the list without leaving the screen.
Safe by default — actions move posts to Trash (recoverable), never permanently delete them.
Post Pruner Pro
Post Pruner Pro extends the free plugin with:
- All post types — manage pages and custom post types alongside posts
- Bulk actions — trash, draft, or set to private in bulk
- Configurable timescales — choose your own age thresholds (3 months, 6 months, 1 year, and more)
- Content audit log — a history of every action taken via Post Pruner: who did what, and when
- Scheduled pruning — set up rules to automatically draft or trash old posts on a schedule
Screenshots
The Post Pruner screen showing posts filtered by age with the Never updated badge visible.
Installation
- Upload the
trilobita-post-prunerfolder to/wp-content/plugins/. - Activate the plugin through the Plugins screen in WordPress.
- Go to Posts > Post Pruner.
No settings or configuration required.
FAQ
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Does this permanently delete posts?
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No. All actions move posts to the WordPress Trash. You can restore them from Posts > Trash at any time.
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Which post types does the free version support?
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The free version works with standard posts only. Post Pruner Pro adds support for pages and custom post types.
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Who can access Post Pruner?
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Users with the
edit_others_postscapability — editors and administrators by default. -
What does “Never updated” mean?
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A post is flagged as never updated when its modified timestamp is within 8 hours of its published timestamp — meaning it has not been meaningfully edited since it was published. The badge appears in the Modified column regardless of which age mode is active.
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Does Post Pruner affect frontend performance?
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No. All queries run in the admin only and are never executed on the frontend.
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Where are the age buckets measured from?
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By default, from the post’s published date. Use the “Age based on” toggle at the top of the page to switch to Modified date — useful for finding posts that were published long ago and never updated.
Reviews
There are no reviews for this plugin.
Contributors & Developers
“Trilobita Post Pruner” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.
Contributors
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Interested in development?
Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.
Changelog
1.0.2
- Renamed internal prefix from
tpptotrippto satisfy WordPress.org prefix-length requirement.
1.0.1
- Updated plugin name to “Trilobita Post Pruner” throughout documentation.
1.0.0
- Initial release.