Back to Community
Home / Community / Core → Fixing wordpress

How to Fix the 'Autoloaded Options Could Affect Performance' Warning in WordPress

12 threads Sep 16, 2025 Core → Fixing wordpress

Content

If you've recently checked your Site Health status in WordPress, you may have encountered a new critical warning: "Autoloaded options could affect performance." This message, introduced in WordPress 6.6, can be confusing and concerning for site owners. This guide will explain what this warning means, why it appears, and the steps you can take to resolve the underlying performance issue.

What Does the Warning Mean?

WordPress stores many of its settings in a database table called wp_options. Some of these settings are marked to be "autoloaded," which means they are loaded into memory on every single page load, whether they are needed or not. This is done for efficiency, as it provides quick access to frequently used data.

The warning is triggered when the total size of all these autoloaded options becomes excessively large (typically over 1 MB). A high number of autoloaded entries can slow down your website's database queries, potentially increasing your Time To First Byte (TTFB) and overall load time.

Why Does This Happen?

The most common cause is poorly coded or abandoned plugins and themes that do not clean up after themselves. Over time, they can leave behind thousands of unnecessary autoloaded records, such as expired transients or old plugin settings, which bloat your options table.

How to Fix the Autoloaded Options Warning

It is not recommended to simply disable the warning. While this will remove the alert from your dashboard, it does not solve the actual performance problem. The following steps provide a safer approach to cleaning your database.

Step 1: Create a Full Backup

Before you make any changes to your database, it is absolutely critical to create a complete backup of your WordPress site and database. This will allow you to restore your site if anything goes wrong during the cleanup process.

Step 2: Clean Your Database with a Plugin (Recommended)

The safest and easiest method for most users is to use a dedicated database cleanup plugin. These tools are designed to safely identify and remove unnecessary data.

  • Install and activate a trusted optimization plugin like Advanced Database Cleaner.
  • Navigate to the plugin's settings and look for options to clean "Expired Transients" and "Orphaned Options." These are often the biggest contributors to autoload bloat.
  • Run the cleanup operations. The plugin will safely remove the unnecessary data that is not being used by your active themes and plugins.

Step 3: Manual Cleanup (Advanced Users)

For users comfortable with phpMyAdmin or similar database management tools, you can manually inspect the wp_options table. You can search for and delete records where the autoload field is set to 'yes' but are no longer needed. Extreme caution is advised, as deleting the wrong options can break your site.

Step 4: Monitor and Maintain

After cleaning, check your Site Health status again. The warning should disappear if the autoloaded data size has been reduced sufficiently. To prevent the problem from recurring, be mindful of the plugins you install and remove them properly if they are deactivated.

Conclusion

The "Autoloaded options could affect performance" warning is WordPress's way of alerting you to a potential database optimization issue. By using a reliable cleanup plugin to remove expired transients and orphaned options, you can resolve this warning and often see a noticeable improvement in your site's performance and response times.

Related Support Threads Support