Clean up orphaned translation data
Use Clean up orphaned data after deleting content or retiring a locale. It removes invalid records while preserving original WordPress posts, terms, and menus.
What cleanup removes
The scan can remove:
- source strings and skeletons linked to deleted posts, terms, or menu items;
- source strings whose base-language text is blank;
- translations assigned to locales that are no longer enabled;
- localized slugs linked to missing content or inactive locales.
Related translation records disappear when their invalid source strings are removed.
Run cleanup
- Create a database backup and JSON export.
- Confirm that every language you still need is enabled.
- Open Settings → POM Translate → Tools → Translation maintenance.
- Find Clean up orphaned data.
- Select Run cleanup.
- Keep the page open until the result message appears.
- Review the counts for strings, translations, slugs, and skeletons.
The tool scans the current site's translation tables. On a large dataset, run it during a low-traffic maintenance period and avoid launching it repeatedly.
What cleanup does not do
Cleanup does not remove valid translations merely because they are pending or old. It does not empty all storage, change settings, delete WordPress content, reset machine-translation usage, or rebuild missing translations.
An inactive locale is intentionally treated as invalid data. Do not temporarily remove a language and run cleanup if you expect to restore its stored translations later.
Verify the result
Open representative content for every remaining language and check translated text, localized slugs, menus, and archives. If the tool reports no orphaned records, no changes were needed.
Use Reset translation storage only when the entire multilingual dataset should be rebuilt; it is not a stronger version of routine cleanup.