Useful WP-CLI commands and scripts

I use WordPress at work and also for some of my personal projects, including the very site you’re on right now. One tool that’s been very handy is WP-CLI, the official command-line interface for WordPress. It’s particularly useful in combination with bash scripts.

Here’s my collection of useful WP-CLI commands that I’ve built over the years, both for my own use and some of the more advanced ones might save you a little bit of time.

Feel free to reach out and share your own.

• Basic work with posts
• Search and replace
• Post meta
• Delete posts
• Post revisions
• Site options
• Plugins
• Users

Basic work with posts¶

Documentation

Search post content.

wp post list --s="text" --fields=ID,post_title,url

Find posts with ping status “open”.

wp post list --ping_status="open"

And if you only want to get the post IDs:

wp post list --ping_status="open" --fields=ID

Update ping status to “closed” where the value is “open”.

wp post update $(wp post list --ping_status="open" --format=ids) --ping_status="closed";

Search and replace¶

Documentation

Search and replace post content.

wp search-replace "old thing" "new thing" --all-tables

Post meta¶

Documentation

List all metadata associated with a post.

wp post meta list 1422 --format=json

Get specific post meta for a post.

wp post meta get 1422 "meta_key" --format=json

Update post meta.

wp post meta update 1422 "meta_key" "meta_value"

Update post meta from a file.

wp post meta update 1422 "post_meta" < file.json --format=json

Delete post meta.

wp post meta delete 1422 "post_meta"

Delete all post meta by specific key. (With wp db query.)

wp db query "DELETE FROM `wp_postmeta` WHERE `meta_key` = 'NAME_OF_YOUR_META_KEY'"

List posts by meta key or value.

wp post list --fields=ID,post_title,url --meta_key="meta_key"
wp post list --fields=ID,post_title,url --meta_key="meta_key" --meta_compare="NOT EXISTS"
wp post list --post_type="post_type" --fields=ID,post_title,url --meta_key="meta_key" --meta_compare="NOT EXISTS"
wp post list --fields=ID,post_title,url --meta_key="_wp_page_template" --meta_value="page-templates/post-full-grid.php"

The meta_compare flag also accepts "LIKE" as a value, so that you can do:

wp post list --fields=ID,post_title,url --meta_key='meta_key' --meta_compare='LIKE' --meta_value='value'

Update meta where it’s missing.

for id in $(wp post list --post_type="post_type" --meta_key="meta_key" --meta_compare="NOT EXISTS" --fields=ID )
do
    wp post meta update $id "meta_key" "meta_value"
done

Update post meta for all posts in a category.

for id in $(wp post list --category_name="category" --fields=ID )
do
    wp post meta update $id "meta_key" "meta_value"
done

Save meta value based on an existing meta value. In this example I’m looping through all post with a specific post type and saving the URL of the featured image to the post’s meta.

for id in $(wp post list --post_type="post_type" --fields=ID --meta_key="meta_key" --meta_compare="NOT EXISTS")
do
    wp post meta update $id "meta_key" $(wp post meta pluck $(wp post meta get $id _thumbnail_id) _wp_attachment_metadata file)
done

Show specific meta value for posts based on a category.

for id in $(wp post list --post_type="post_type" --fields=ID --category="category name")
do
    wp post meta get $id "meta_key"
done

Export/import all meta.

wp post meta list 1422 --format=json > 1422_meta.json
wp post update 1422 --meta_input= < 1422_meta.json

Working with post terms¶

Documentation

Move posts from one tag to another.

for id in $(wp post list --tag=OLD_TAG --format=ids)
do
    wp post term remove $id post_tag OLD_TAG --by=slug
    wp post term add $id post_tag NEW_TAG --by=slug
done

Delete posts¶

Documentation

Delete all posts from a custom post type. (Adding --force will skip the trash and remove the posts completely.)

wp post delete $(wp post list --post_type='activity' --format=ids) --force

If you’re trying to delete too many posts at once, you might get an error like this:

PHP Fatal error: Allowed memory size of xxx bytes exhausted

Or perhaps this one:

Argument list too long

One way around this is to limit how many posts you’re deleting at once using the posts_per_page option, for example:

wp post delete $(wp post list --post_type='activity' --posts_per_page=50000 --format=ids) --force

Delete posts with specific meta key.

wp post delete $(wp post list --format=ids --meta_key="meta_key")

Delete posts with specific meta key and meta value.

wp post delete $(wp post list --format=ids --meta_key="meta_key" --meta_value="meta_value")

Delete posts where a specific meta key is missing.

wp post delete $(wp post list --format=ids --meta_key="meta_key" --meta_compare="NOT EXISTS")

Post revisions¶

List all revisions.

wp post list --post_type=revision

List revisions for a specific post.

wp post list --post_parent=1422 --post_type=revision

Get more info on revisions for a specific post.

for id in $(wp post list --post_parent=1422 --post_type=revision --fields=ID)
do
    wp post get $id
done

Site options¶

Documentation

Change the site URL.

wp option update home 'https://example.com'
wp option update siteurl 'https://example.com'

Plugins¶

Documentation

List active plugins.

wp plugin list --status=active

Activate/deactivate plugins.

wp plugin activate plugin-1 plugin-2 plugin-3
wp plugin deactivate plugin-1 plugin-2 plugin-3

Users¶

Documentation

Update user password.

wp user update USER_ID --user_pass="newpassword"

#bash #scripting #wordpress #wp-cli