LLMs.txt exists even though feature is disabled

Hi @kgagne ,

Thanks for the detailed report, and sorry for the confusion.

When All in One SEO → Sitemaps → LLMs.txt → Enable llms.txt is turned on and the settings are saved, AIOSEO can generate the llms.txt file in your site’s root directory. When that setting is turned off and you save changes, the plugin is designed to remove the file right away.

If you still see the file even though the setting is off, a few things can explain that:

• A cached copy may still be being served by your browser, your host, or a CDN. Please try checking the LLMS.txt file in an incognito/private window and clear any site/CDN cache.
• Please open the file itself and check whether it says it was generated by All in One SEO. If it does not, then it may have been created by another plugin, tool, or a previous manual test.
• In some cases, the file may have been created earlier if the feature was enabled briefly. For example, that can happen during another workflow such as the SEO Checklist.

You should not normally need SFTP for this. Turning the setting off and saving should remove the AIOSEO-managed file.

If you have already saved the setting as disabled, cleared cache, and the file is still there, then yes, you can safely delete llms.txt manually from your site root using SFTP or your host’s File Manager as a one-time cleanup. It should not be recreated unless the feature is enabled again.

If the issue continues, please let us know your exact AIOSEO version, site URL and whether you’re using any caching plugin or CDN, and we’ll take a closer look.

Thanks!

Hi @kgagne ,

Thank you for checking that so thoroughly, that’s really helpful.

Since the file clearly shows “Generated by All in One SEO” and is updating daily, that confirms it was being generated by the plugin at some point, even if it wasn’t something you explicitly enabled yourself.

What you just tested is actually the key part here. Toggling the setting ON and then OFF forces AIOSEO to properly register the current state and remove the file, which is why you saw it disappear immediately after doing that.

In some cases, this can happen if the option was briefly enabled in the background, for example during setup flows or feature checks, and the file generation process continued until the setting was explicitly saved again. The plugin relies on that save action to clean things up.

Now that you’ve toggled it OFF and saved, the file should not be recreated again.

I’d recommend just keeping an eye on it over the next day or so. If it does reappear again with the setting still disabled, please let me know along with your AIOSEO version and we’ll dig deeper into that, because that would not be expected behavior.

Really appreciate you taking the time to test this so carefully, that made it much easier to narrow down