New Year’s Resolution: Delete everything and start again

So, you’ve created your new site OR you want to start over but from a clean slate …

Here’s how:

1. Delete pages and posts either individually or in bulk; Remember there may be custom post types (e.g. events, testimonials and projects), media files and comments to send to the bin. Only do this on the boiler plate site, especially if you are not confident about creating and archive or retrieving existing content.
2. If you have an existing site, spin up a new one then delete the starter content from there – your old site can be kept live that way and archived or deleted when you are done.

Delete pages and posts selectively

If you have spun up a new website as a test and want to remove the placeholder content, this is what to do:-

1. Establish which content to remove (on the starter website there are only posts, pages, media files, and menus)
2. Then Dashboard > All posts > select all and then from the Bulk actions drop-down select “Move to bin” and then click Apply.
3. Repeat this as many times as you need and then move on to Pages and Media (for which you will need to have list view set.)
4. Posts, pages and other content types will remain the bin for 30 days after which they are gone forever. Media once deleted cannot be retrieved.
5. Final steps include removing any footers or marginalia – widgets in old WordPress money.
6. Finally, finally delete the menus – in this case you can skip the individual items (the remove option and delete are strikingly similar so take care here). Once deleted menus, like Media, cannot be retrieved.

Do not delete the content on an “active” website until you are quite sure that is what you want to do. It is always easier to create a new site, migrate content you need over and delete or better archive the old. It can be difficult – indeed impossible – to recover old content once it is deleted.