--- title: "Disable comments in WordPress with WP-CLI" description: "Disable comments in WordPress with WP-CLI — close new and existing posts from the command line, clear spam safely, and the delete command to avoid on a store." pubDate: 2026-09-21 source: https://adminkeep.com/guides/disable-comments-wordpress-wp-cli/ --- Turning comments off in the WordPress admin is a settings page, a bulk edit per post type, and a lot of clicking. On one site that is an afternoon's chore. On twenty client sites, or in a script that builds a new site, it is the wrong tool. WP-CLI does the same job in a handful of commands, and you can run them again next month when someone reopens a thread by accident. This guide covers the commands that close comments properly, the cleanup command that is safe, and the one you should never paste into a store. If you'd rather do this in the admin, the [click-by-click version of this guide](/guides/disable-comments-wordpress/) covers the same ground. ## Step 1: close comments on new posts The checkbox on **Settings → Discussion** ("Allow people to submit comments on new posts") is one option in the database. Set it from the command line: ```bash wp option update default_comment_status closed wp option update default_ping_status closed ``` The second line does the same for pingbacks and trackbacks, which are a separate field. Both options only set the **default for content you haven't published yet**. Every post already on the site keeps whatever it had, which is why this step alone never finishes the job. ## Step 2: close comments on everything you already have Each post stores its own `comment_status`. To close them all, list the posts that are still open and update them: ```bash wp post list --post_type=post,page --post_status=any \ --comment_status=open --format=ids ``` Run that first on its own. It prints the ids it would touch, so you can see the size of the change before making it. Then: ```bash wp post update $(wp post list --post_type=post,page --post_status=any \ --comment_status=open --format=ids) \ --comment_status=closed --ping_status=closed ``` Two things to know: - **Add your custom post types.** `--post_type=post,page` covers only those two. `wp post-type list --fields=name,public` shows the rest; anything public that supports comments belongs in the list. - **On a big site, go in batches.** Thousands of ids in one command can exceed the shell's argument limit. Pipe them through `xargs` instead: ```bash wp post list --post_type=post,page --post_status=any \ --comment_status=open --format=ids \ | xargs -n 200 sh -c 'wp post update "$@" --comment_status=closed --ping_status=closed' _ ``` This is the step that matters for spam. Bots never load your comment form; they `POST` straight to `wp-comments-post.php`, and WordPress rejects the request only when the post's own `comment_status` is closed. Hiding the form in a template does nothing. Closing the post does. ## Step 3: check that it worked ```bash wp post list --post_type=post,page --post_status=any \ --comment_status=open --format=count ``` `0` means nothing is open. Keep this line: it is the check to run again later, because a closed site doesn't always stay closed. An editor can reopen a single post from the editor sidebar, an import can bring posts in with comments open, and a plugin that creates content may not read your default. ## What is still there afterwards Closing comments stops new ones. It doesn't remove anything that is already on the page: - **Approved comments still show** under each post, with a "Comments are closed" line beneath them. - **The admin still has** its Comments menu, the dashboard activity box, and the comment bubble in the toolbar. - **The comment feeds still answer**, and the REST API still lists existing comments. None of this is a security problem. It is just not what most people mean by "comments are off". ## Clearing out spam and trash Once comments are closed, the old spam is dead weight. WP-CLI can remove it, and this version is safe because it only touches what you have already rejected: ```bash wp comment delete $(wp comment list --status=spam --format=ids) --force wp comment delete $(wp comment list --status=trash --format=ids) --force ``` `--force` skips the trash and deletes for good, so count first with `wp comment list --status=spam --format=count`. ## Never run the "delete everything" one-liner on a store Search for how to delete all WordPress comments and you will find some version of this: ```bash # Do not run this on a WooCommerce site. wp db query "DELETE FROM wp_comments" ``` On a blog it removes blog comments. On a store it removes much more. WooCommerce keeps **order notes** in the same table: payment confirmations, refund records, the "shipped" note a support agent typed into an order. They are rows in `wp_comments` with a `comment_type` of `order_note`. Webhook delivery logs are stored the same way, and product reviews are comments too. We caught this on a real site. Its front end showed three comments. The `wp_comments` table held 122 rows, and 118 of them were order notes. WooCommerce hides those rows from normal comment queries, which is why `wp comment list` and the Comments screen look nearly empty on a store. A raw SQL delete has no such filter. It would have erased the order history of every customer, to remove three comments. So: **close, never bulk-delete.** If you do need to delete, select by status or by `comment_type`, never the whole table, and take a database backup first (`wp db export`). ## The same job with Adminkeep [Adminkeep](/) is a free plugin with a Disable Comments feature, and since 1.5.0 it has its own WP-CLI commands. The whole of this guide becomes: ```bash wp plugin install adminkeep --activate wp adminkeep feature enable disable_comments ``` That one switch closes comments on all existing content as well as new posts, rejects direct `POST` requests to `wp-comments-post.php`, and hides the comments that were already approved, which closing alone leaves on the page. It writes **no changes to your posts**. Turn it off and every post has exactly the comment setting it had before: ```bash wp adminkeep feature disable disable_comments ``` The cleanup has the store problem built in: ```bash wp adminkeep comments count wp adminkeep comments purge ``` `count` prints the number `purge` would delete. By default that is spam and trash only. WooCommerce order notes, webhook logs and product reviews are left out unless you pass `--woo`. Comments on trashed posts are skipped, because they come back if you restore the post. Comment types it doesn't recognise are left alone. `purge` shows the number and asks before deleting; in a script, `--yes` answers for you. Deleting is the one thing here that cannot be undone, so the defaults are the cautious ones. For a fleet of sites, the same two lines run anywhere WP-CLI reaches: ```bash for site in site-a.example site-b.example; do wp --ssh="deploy@$site" adminkeep feature enable disable_comments done ``` Every command is listed in the [WP-CLI commands reference](/docs/wp-cli/), and `wp help adminkeep` prints the same reference on the site itself. Adminkeep is a [free download](/), GPL, and every one of its features is fully reversible — switch it off and your site is exactly as it was.