My free plugin, Delete Duplicate Posts v.2 is now released, and the update is nothing short of a complete rewrite from the first version.
The name of the plugin is a dead giveaway for what it does, it deletes duplicate posts (by the EXACT same title). It is really handy for those people who runs auto-blogs, or had a coding meltdown and had their blog filled with duplicate posts. How embarrassing, eh?
The first version was very quick and not very well written. It did get quite a bit of feedback though, and several people actually took their time to send me an email of thanks, and in most cases also a request to make it run automatically!
So .. I did.
And spiced it up a bit with a 
much nicer design, and some cool features for you.
First, install the plugin, go to the plugin page, activate it, and then find the link to the plugin under “Tools” with the name “Delete Duplicate Posts”.
The first time you enter the page you will either be happy to be greeted with a message like this:
I’m trying to create a new way of communicating status of operation, that is written in a clear language, instead of silly stats and strange links different places. I believe a clear, well written text can more easily explain a range of variables that respond to a specific situation.
For instance, above screenshot is taken from the situation where you have turned CRON on. If you haven’t, here’s what you are gonna see:
Again, it is short, easily understood, and then with my own personal “style” of writing.
Now, some times, you are gonna see some duplicate posts. It happens, that’s why I made this plugin.
Here’s how it gonna look:
As you can see, it is quite clear that there is something here that needs attention with the red borders, and the text is quite easy to understand. Clicking the big blue button gives you instant cleaning!
The plugin is intelligent enough to know if the administrator clicks the Big Blue Button manually or is being run via CRON. Why is this necessary you say? Well, if there was no limit on how many blogposts it would delete, it could turn in to a really long loading time. It can really take some server power in a short burst.
That’s why you can set the limit of how many duplicate blogposts to delete every time the CRON runs. Between 10 and 100. Those are pretty safe numbers for not putting too much of a strain on your blog, and still having those pesky blogposts deleted.
However, if you click the “Big Blue Button” manually, the plugin is gonna delete the first 999.999 duplicate posts.
(Yes, that would be quite a lot of duplicate posts. Poor server…)
Other than that, I have added a log function, so you can see which posts have been deleted, and various other information, with timestamps.
Finally, there is also a “Help”-tab, which is more like a FAQ in fact. Have a quick glance in case you have any questions.
So, what are you waiting for? Go download it right now!
Lars Koudal - WordPress Developer and SEO consultant based in Barcelona.
Clicking the blue delete duplicate posts button does nothing in v2.0. The last version worked.
Hi Jonathan
Really? Sorry to hear that. So, the blue button appears, but nothing happens when you click it? Does the plugin reload? Does it delete some of them? Could you be a bit more specific, and I will try to work out the kinks?
Yeah, the page reloads but it still shows the same duplicate posts. None of them get deleted. I’m not sure if I can be more specific than that. I’ve reverted to 1.3.1 for now because that one works perfectly.
Hello!
I have the same problem – duplicate posts are shown but the blue button doesn´t work sice upgrade to 2.0!
Kind regards,
markus
ps. wp version 2.9.2
Looks pretty good – cron feature is a godsend for us as we currently take feeds from a number of publishers and publish automatically. They occasionally send the same thing 3 or 4 times – while we are trying to stop these posts from ever publishing, your plugin helps in the meantime!
Hi Rob
Thanks. I will try to implement a piece of code in a later version, that prevents the publishing for duplicate posts (based on title).
However, I know quite a few of the rss plugins/autoposters, and most use a “hack” to post to WordPress, and this code would not limit them. Unfortunately.
But, I will see what I can do in a future version.
You can see the update directly here as well:
Hi
Could either of you, or both, be so kind to go to the “Log” panel, and tell me what it says in there? It could help me pinpoint the error.
I can no longer do that since I reverted to 1.3.1.
Ah. Listen, anyway, I found the bug, and fixed it. Basically, it was me.. Sorry about that
I updated the repository to v2.0.2, so please try out that version, that should work just fine.
Also, don’t ask about 2.0.1, okay?
It works now. Thanks!
works perfect now – thank you very much!
kind regards from austria,
markus
I got this error when I click on the settings link:
Cannot load delete-duplicate-posts.php.
Hi Daryl
Thank you for catching that. You’re referring to the wrong link from the Plugins-page, correct? Anyway, I fixed the bug, and I will release the new version shortly. Thanks.
Hello! The new version of plugins conflicts with the plugin wprobot.
Best regards,
Mihasik
Hi Mihasik
Thanks for dropping by and telling me. I have just tested it, and could not find any conflict with WP Robot? Could you be so kind to give me a few more details about the conflict?
What conflict exactly? Does it happen during activation of either plugin, or when going to the settings pages?
I hope you can direct me in the right direction, right now I cannot find any conflict myself?
A very helpful WP-Plugin. Thanks !
You are quite welcome
Hi,
I used to use version 1.3.1, which worked fine, but this version (even the ‘updated update’) doesn’t seem to activate correctly. All I’m getting is the CleverPlugins banner, and the following list of links: Dashboard, Configuration, Log, Help, which are intended to point to other sections on the page (eg. …delete-duplicate-posts.php#dashboard), and what seems to be the header for the Dashboard section, but nothing else is loaded (and obviously none of the links resolve correctly).
I’d be very grateful for any advice you might have about what could be the matter.
Hi Anett
Sorry for your trouble, could you help me out and tell me what browser you are using? The use of those tabs are via jQuery, and should work “out of the box”, as it is built in with WordPress, and I have not personally encountered a browser that did not render correctly?
Please get back to me, and I will do my best to hunt down the error, and make an “updated update for the update”
Hi,
Thanks for your almost immediate offer of help and very sorry for not having gotten back to you any earlier. I’ve now managed to make it work
It wasn’t a browser issue. The problem was that I had A LOT of duplicates: over 7000 to be precise (I know, I know – it’s the first autoblog I set up, which had really high posting frequencies and which I hadn’t looked at for a couple months).
There were so many duplicates that the memory got filled up and the process aborted.
Since the plugin checks for duplicates on loading, it never managed to load successfully. I worked this out since even version 1.3.1 didn’t work any longer.
I’ve now spent the last few days painstakingly deleting duplicates, first by hand by searching identical titles, and then using the old version of the tool. Interestingly, I found that there seems to be a top limit of maximally about 150-200 dupes it can cope with at a time, and I see that the new configuration options allow you to set a limit, which is great. Hopefully I won’t have more than 150 dupes per day in future :-0
Anyway, I thought I’d report back to let you know that it wasn’t a browser issue nor a problem with the plugin, but a memory overload.
Thanks again
Anette
I was wondering how your plugin is different from this one which almost have the same name : http://bavotasan.com/downloads/delete-duplicate-posts-pro-WordPress-plugin/
Hi Michael
Wow. I wish I’d named my plugin differently. Without having played with the other plugin, I think the only difference is that the one I provide is free. I have not tried the other plugin, but perhaps I will one day when I have some spare time.
I believe technically-speaking that I read under the GNU licensing for WP itself that any theme, template, or plugin that utilizes WP code or WP itself is not allowed to be chargeable. On the other hand, a lot of developers are doing just that. To some degree I cannot blame them.
Is there any way to adjust the frequency of the cron job on this?
Also, I’ve had a few instances of duplicate posts sneaking through – sometimes the Title of the post was slightly different (strange characters) perhaps resultant from two separate feeds on the same site (atom versus RSS) – the body however remains mostly the same. I’m not certain if you could add code that would also check the first 10 words of a sentence or the last 10, and perhaps nuke a duplicate that way.
Other than that – great plugin. I really appreciate it.
I just installed and ran it manually, said it deleted all duplicates, log files look correct…but the posts themselves are still visible on the web site (even the duplicates). I am not using caching that I’m aware of.
Hi, can somebody tell me is there plugin or is it possible to modify this plugin to check duplicate post inside category.
Hi Web dizajn
DDP doesn’t allow for that, although I will note it down for a future version.
I wish I could tell you about an alternative, but I do not know of any. Please let me know if you should find one yourself.
Perhaps someone else here can recommend something?
i installed ver 2.2 and it just reloaded the page when i clicked delete. i’m using wp 3.1.
i removed 2.2 and installed your verion 1.3.1 like Jonathan Kemp said above and that worked.