Title: Uninstalling plugins does not remove their database tables
Last modified: July 28, 2017

---

# Uninstalling plugins does not remove their database tables

 *  [qaws](https://wordpress.org/support/users/qaws/)
 * (@qaws)
 * [8 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/uninstalling-plugins-does-not-remove-their-database-tables/)
 * Hi,
 * I’ve been using WordPress for my site for 6 years. Over this time I’ve installed,
   used and uninstalled many plugins. I’ve noticed that not all plugins, if any,
   remove any tables they made in the WP database when they’re uninstalled. This
   has left me with a lot of orphaned tables, some of them large if for example 
   they contain a site-wide scan for some purpose.
 * I’ve used the WPDBSpringClean plugin to do a search of my database and report
   on what it thinks are unused tables, which I want to get rid of. But, trying 
   to find what these tables relate to is difficult. Googling for a table name (
   and also minus the “wp_” prefix) sometimes yields 0 results.
 * It would be helpful if there was a central list of database tables used by plugins,
   firstly so that people who are tidying up their database know exactly which plugin
   tables relate to which plugins, and secondly for developers as I suppose there’s
   an edge case where two plugins could use tables of the same name.
 * If not a central list, then a tool that can help us find this info, similar to
   the hotexamples website where I can look up where how functions are used. If 
   plugin source were available and indexed as standard in text form, for all free
   plugins on the WP repository, then we could do a simple search on this data.
 * Thanks.

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)

 *  [deepinwp](https://wordpress.org/support/users/deepinwp/)
 * (@deepinwp)
 * [8 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/uninstalling-plugins-does-not-remove-their-database-tables/#post-9360549)
 * hi,
    when you deactivate a plugin , the table will exist until you delete the
   plugin in right way (from wordpress admin panel). If you remove the plugin manually
   from ftp or other way tables will remain. I think you can remove unused tables
   with this plugin , [https://wordpress.org/plugins/plugins-garbage-collector/](https://wordpress.org/plugins/plugins-garbage-collector/)
   good luck
 *  Thread Starter [qaws](https://wordpress.org/support/users/qaws/)
 * (@qaws)
 * [8 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/uninstalling-plugins-does-not-remove-their-database-tables/#post-9360715)
 * Hi, thanks for the link. It’s not always the case that deleting the plugin will
   also remove the tables. I always delete them using the Plugins page in wp-admin,
   and sometimes the tables remain.
 * Thanks.
 *  [Jacob Peattie](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jakept/)
 * (@jakept)
 * [8 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/uninstalling-plugins-does-not-remove-their-database-tables/#post-9360739)
 * It’s up to the plugin whether or not to delete tables on uninstall. They can 
   keep them, remove them, or add an option.
 * If you have issues with specific plugins not removing its tables, you’ll need
   to take it up with its authors.
 *  [Jacob Peattie](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jakept/)
 * (@jakept)
 * [8 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/uninstalling-plugins-does-not-remove-their-database-tables/#post-9360740)
 * It’s up to the plugin whether or not to delete tables on uninstall. They can 
   keep them, remove them, or add an option.
 * If you have issues with specific plugins not removing its tables, you’ll need
   to take it up with its authors.

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)

The topic ‘Uninstalling plugins does not remove their database tables’ is closed
to new replies.

## Tags

 * [deactivate plugin](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/deactivate-plugin/)

 * In: [Fixing WordPress](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/how-to-and-troubleshooting/)
 * 4 replies
 * 3 participants
 * Last reply from: [Jacob Peattie](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jakept/)
 * Last activity: [8 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/uninstalling-plugins-does-not-remove-their-database-tables/#post-9360740)
 * Status: not resolved

## Topics

### Topics with no replies

### Non-support topics

### Resolved topics

### Unresolved topics

### All topics