WireCore Order Archive Cleaner for WooCommerce

Archive old WooCommerce orders automatically to keep the order list focused – without deleting them.
With rules, CSV export, retention and webhooks.
WordPress 6.5+ · WooCommerce 8.2+ · PHP 7.4 – 8.5 · HPOS · English and German

wordpress.org · Installation · How it compares · WP-CLI · Hooks · Webhook · Development · Changelog · Contributing · Security

About

The plugin adds the order status “Archived” and moves qualifying orders into it, once a day in the background or manually from the order list. Archived orders disappear from “All”, but remain in WooCommerce and can be restored to their previous status at any time.

The user-facing description lives in readme.txt, which is also shown on wordpress.org.

Why WireCore Order Archive Cleaner

After a few years, a shop has thousands of completed orders. The order list, its search and the status counts are dominated by orders nobody needs to look at again, and the ones that need attention get lost. Deleting them is not an option: accounting and tax rules require keeping them for years, and customers still ask about old orders.

WooCommerce itself has no way to put orders aside. WireCore Order Archive Cleaner adds an archive status for that – automatic, with rules for the orders that should stay visible, reversible at any time, and with a CSV export and a retention period for the day the orders may finally go.

Features

• Daily background run via Action Scheduler, continued batch by batch until all orders are checked; cutoff of 1–120 months, order statuses of your choice, batch size up to 200.
• Dry-run mode, “Run now” with the result of the batch, optional summary email.
• Rules: skip orders with refunds, above a total, of customers with selected roles or with products from selected categories.
• Bulk actions “Archive” / “Restore from archive” and order actions on the order screen; restoring returns the previous status.
• Scheduled CSV export of all archived orders by email (weekly/monthly).
• Retention: permanently delete archived orders after 1–20 years, optionally only after a CSV backup by email.
• Webhook on every archived order, signed with HMAC-SHA256.
• Dashboard widget, WP-CLI, HPOS compatible.
• Translations: English source strings, German (de_DE, de_DE_formal) bundled.

Requires WordPress 6.5+, WooCommerce 8.2+ and PHP 7.4+.

How it compares

As of 9 November 2026 – ArchiveMaster 1.13.5, Archive Old Orders 1.6.7, Archiva 1.8.1, Clicks Order Archiver 1.0.0 – from each plugin's own documentation; ? means it is not documented there. If something has changed, a correction is welcome.

Where WireCore Order Archive Cleaner is behind today: it does not make the database smaller. Archived orders stay in the WooCommerce order tables – that keeps them in reports, customer histories and every tool that reads orders, but if the size of the order tables is the problem, a plugin that moves orders into separate tables fits better. It has no built-in rule for subscription orders; skip them with the filter wirecore_oac_should_skip_order (see Hooks). Exports are sent by email, there is no download in the admin. And it is new, while ArchiveMaster has been in use since early 2025.

Installation

From the WordPress plugin directory: Plugins → Add New → “WireCore Order Archive Cleaner”.

With Composer via WPackagist:

composer require wpackagist-plugin/circle3-order-archive-cleaner-for-woocommerce

The slug circle3-order-archive-cleaner-for-woocommerce dates from the former Circle3 brand and cannot be changed on wordpress.org. The settings are under WooCommerce → Order Archive.

WP-CLI

wp wirecore-archive run [--all]
wp wirecore-archive restore <order-id> [--status=<status>]
wp wirecore-archive status [--format=table|json|csv]
wp wirecore-archive export

Hooks

Webhook

On every archived order, a JSON POST request is sent to the configured HTTPS address:

{
    "event": "order.archived",
    "order_id": 123,
    "order_number": "123",
    "previous_status": "completed",
    "customer_email": "customer@example.org",
    "total": "49.90",
    "currency": "EUR",
    "date_created": "2024-03-01T10:00:00+00:00",
    "site_url": "https://shop.example.org"
}

With a secret, the header X-WireCore-Signature: sha256=<hex> contains hash_hmac('sha256', $raw_body, $secret).

Development

Requirements: Docker. Node.js and Composer run in containers as well.

docker compose up -d   # WordPress on http://localhost:8094, phpMyAdmin on :8095
docker compose exec wordpress wp --allow-root core install --url=http://localhost:8094 --title=Dev --admin_user=admin --admin_password=admin --admin_email=admin@example.org --skip-email
docker compose exec wordpress wp --allow-root plugin install woocommerce --activate
docker compose exec wordpress wp --allow-root plugin activate circle3-order-archive-cleaner-for-woocommerce
docker run --rm -u "$(id -u):$(id -g)" -v "$PWD":/app -w /app node:22 npm install   # Prettier, @wirecore/wirelayer-css

WordPress itself lives in the Docker volume wordpress, so WooCommerce survives recreating the container. The plugin is mounted as circle3-order-archive-cleaner-for-woocommerce. The container runs the newest supported PHP version (8.5, see Dockerfile), so deprecations show up during development.

The settings page uses the WireLayer components (.wc-* classes). npm run build:css writes the components listed in package.json, scoped to #wirecore-oac, with their fonts to assets/wirelayer/. The output is committed, so the plugin needs no build step; run the command again after adding a component or updating @wirecore/wirelayer-css.

WP-CLI is available in the container:

docker compose exec wordpress wp --allow-root wirecore-archive status

Code style and checks

• Formatting: Prettier with tabs and single quotes – npm run format / npm run format:check.

• Plugin Check (the tool used by the wordpress.org review):

    docker compose exec wordpress wp --allow-root plugin install plugin-check --activate
    docker compose exec wordpress wp --allow-root plugin check circle3-order-archive-cleaner-for-woocommerce \
        --include-experimental \
        --exclude-directories=node_modules,db-data,.vscode,.github,vendor,tests \
        --exclude-files=.gitignore,.gitattributes,.distignore,.prettierrc,.prettierignore,CLAUDE.md,README.md,CHANGELOG.md,SECURITY.md,CONTRIBUTING.md,docker-compose.yml,Dockerfile,composer.json,composer.lock,package.json,package-lock.json,phpcs.xml.dist,phpunit.xml.dist

Tests

PHPUnit integration tests run against the WordPress test suite (wp-phpunit, WordPress core from roots/wordpress-no-content) with WooCommerce from WPackagist and a separate database wordpress_test – never point them at a real database, the suite empties it.

docker run --rm -u "$(id -u):$(id -g)" -v "$PWD":/app -w /app composer:2 composer install
docker compose exec db mariadb -uroot -ppassword -e "CREATE DATABASE IF NOT EXISTS wordpress_test"
docker compose exec -w /var/www/html/wp-content/plugins/circle3-order-archive-cleaner-for-woocommerce wordpress vendor/bin/phpunit

The database settings in tests/wp-tests-config.php default to the Docker environment and can be overridden with WP_TESTS_DB_HOST, WP_TESTS_DB_USER, WP_TESTS_DB_PASSWORD and WP_TESTS_DB_NAME.

The plugin supports PHP 7.4 – 8.5. To run the syntax check and the tests on every version like the CI does, use the official PHP images in the network of the Docker environment:

for v in 7.4 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 8.5; do
    docker run --rm --network "$(basename "$PWD" | tr '[:upper:]' '[:lower:]')_default" -v "$PWD":/app -w /app -e WP_TESTS_DB_PASSWORD=password php:$v-cli \
        sh -c "docker-php-ext-install mysqli >/dev/null && find . -name '*.php' -not -path './vendor/*' -not -path './node_modules/*' -exec php -l {} \; | grep -v 'No syntax errors'; vendor/bin/phpunit"
done

Composer installs the dependencies for PHP 7.4 (config.platform in composer.json), so the same vendor/ works on every version.

By default the tests store orders as posts. With WIRECORE_OAC_HPOS=1 they use the HPOS tables, the default of new shops – e.g. docker compose exec -e WIRECORE_OAC_HPOS=1 -w … wordpress vendor/bin/phpunit or -e WIRECORE_OAC_HPOS=1 in the loop above. The CI runs both.

Translations

All UI strings are English in the code (text domain circle3-order-archive-cleaner-for-woocommerce) and translated in languages/. After changing strings (P=wp-content/plugins/circle3-order-archive-cleaner-for-woocommerce):

docker compose exec wordpress wp --allow-root i18n make-pot $P $P/languages/circle3-order-archive-cleaner-for-woocommerce.pot --domain=circle3-order-archive-cleaner-for-woocommerce --exclude=node_modules,db-data,languages,vendor,tests
docker compose exec wordpress wp --allow-root i18n update-po $P/languages/circle3-order-archive-cleaner-for-woocommerce.pot $P/languages
# translate new or changed entries in both .po files, then:
docker compose exec wordpress wp --allow-root i18n make-mo $P/languages
docker compose exec wordpress wp --allow-root i18n make-php $P/languages

Package contents

Only the files needed by the plugin are shipped. Development files are excluded via .distignore and mirrored in .gitattributes – add new development files to both.

Continuous integration

.github/workflows/ci.yml runs on every push to main and on pull requests:

• PHP syntax check on PHP 7.4 – 8.5
• PHP compatibility from PHP 7.4 up to 8.5 with PHPCompatibility 10 (composer phpcs, see phpcs.xml.dist)
• PHPUnit on PHP 7.4 – 8.5, each with HPOS and with post storage (composer test); deprecations fail the tests
• Prettier (npm run format:check) and WireLayer CSS up to date
• Plugin Check on the built package, warnings included

Releasing

1. Bump Version: in wirecore-order-archive-cleaner.php and Stable tag: in readme.txt, and add the changelog entry to readme.txt and CHANGELOG.md.

2. Merge it into main via pull request (CI must pass).

3. Create and push a tag with the version number, without a v prefix:

    git tag 1.0.1 && git push origin 1.0.1

.github/workflows/release.yml then checks that tag, plugin header and stable tag match, deploys the package (files selected by .distignore, assets from .wordpress-org/) to the wordpress.org SVN repository and creates a GitHub release with the ZIP.

Changes to readme.txt (e.g. "Tested up to") or .wordpress-org/ alone don't need a release: .github/workflows/assets.yml publishes them when they reach main, as long as the code on main matches the released version. It can also be started manually under Actions.

One-time setup: add the secrets SVN_USERNAME and SVN_PASSWORD (the SVN password from the wordpress.org profile under Account & Security) to the GitHub environment wordpress.org, and allow the tag pattern *.*.* and the branch main under its deployment branches and tags.

License

GPL-2.0-or-later © WireCore GmbH