Mujazmi
May 26, 2020
Writing SQL codes using phpMyAdmin is one of the “easiest” but for those who aren’t really into the thing, here’s a plugin for you, and the explanation regarding how to do quick search and replace in WordPress. When you have blogs with massive amount of posts and pages, it would be tedious to change a few words on each of them manually. There are many ways to do this thing, but require some sort of knowledge in coding.
quick search and replace in WordPress
First of all, for the worst case scenario, it is better to back-up your database before making changes. This will help you to restore the content easily whenever something unexpected happen. Then you can proceed to install and activate the Better Search Replace plugin. Get into Tools > Better Search Replace menu and you’ll see as follows:
Type the text you want to find on the Search column in the first line, and the text you want to replace on the Replace With column. On the example above we use “WordPress Tips” to be replaced with “WordPress Tricks.” If you’re working with case-sensitive text, this plugin will serve you well.
Choose which to replace
Having done with that, you’ll have to choose what table you want to search and replace, and since we’re going to make a change in our posts, therefore select wp_post on the “Select tables” column.
You can preview how much cells involved in this change before really replacing the text. If you’re sure, proceed by clicking Run Search/Replace button.
When the Better Search Replace plugin is working with the text on the database, it is normal for your site to go blank/timeout at the time. If you’re not comfortable with this you can always change the plugin settings by changing the maximum page size option into the bare minimum to prevent blank page.
After the plugin finished its job, see how much alterations were made. You’ll see this is the easiest route on how to do quick search and replace in WordPress, and have the text changed without even editing each of the page/post settings.
