Where to find them
The maintenance tools live on the dashboard, next to the Database category cards. They are opt-in — Mission Control never auto-runs them.
Cleanup expired transients
Purges _transient_timeout_* rows whose timeout has passed, then the matching _transient_* rows. On multisite it also handles _site_transient_*. The tool reports the number of rows deleted so you can confirm it did something.
Safe to run on a live store — only transient rows whose own expiry timestamp is in the past are removed.
Optimise database tables
Runs OPTIMIZE TABLE followed by ANALYZE TABLE on every table flagged as fragmented (i.e. data_free > 0 and over 10% fragmentation).
Two guardrails protect against accidental damage:
- Each table name is validated against the WordPress prefix.
- Each table name is run through an alphanumeric + underscore regex before being interpolated into the SQL.
After optimisation completes the database checks re-run automatically so the dashboard reflects the new state.
When to run them
Run the transient cleanup any time the count in the Database card is high. Run the table optimiser when fragmentation appears or after a large delete (e.g. clearing old logs).