Delete WooCommerce Variations by Category, Attribute, Keyword, etc.

In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to delete WooCommerce product variations by category, attribute, tag, keyword, etc. using an intuitive spreadsheet.

With the normal WooCommerce product editor you can remove product variations, but it takes you lots of hours or even days, depending on how many products you have.

The question is, what if you need to do it in just some minutes? Do you think you’ll be able to delete product variations for two thousand products in a single day? It sounds exhausting and boring, doesn’t it?

That’s why we’ll show you how to delete product variations in bulk filtering products by category, keyword, etc.

1. Install the Sheet Editor Plugin

This is a WordPress plugin that provides an intuitive spreadsheet where you can see all the product information and edit it freely.

You can skip this step if you already have the plugin installed and activated.

Once installed and activated, you need to go to Sheet Editor > Edit products to open the plugin, which will display your products in a spreadsheet like this:

You will see every product on your store displayed as a row on the spreadsheet; also, you’ll see every field from your products displayed in the spreadsheet as columns.

2. Search for the WooCommerce product variations to be deleted

After the spreadsheet is ready, you need to open the Search tool located in the toolbar.

Now you can use any of the search filters to find the products you want to edit, as we show you in the following sections:

a) Find product variations by keyword

If you need to filter your variations by keyword, you can do it with the Search tool.

Just enter the values as follows:

• Contains keyword: Enter the keyword you’re looking for.
• Search on variations?: Check the box
• Then hit Run search.

Once the variable products have been filtered by the selected keyword, they will be displayed in the spreadsheet in the following way:

b) Filter all product variations by category, attribute, or tag

In this example, we’ll find all the products from the Fashion category by entering the following values:

• Enter the product category in the taxonomies field
• Enable the Search on variations? option
• And hit Run Search.

After the plugin has filtered the variable products by the selected category, the results will be displayed.

c) Search for all product variations by date range

Now we will show you how to search your WooCommerce variable products by date range.

For example, let’s say we’re looking for variable products created between August 1, 2021, and August 31, 2021.

To do this, we will enter the following values in the Search tool:

• Enable the Search on variations? option
• Check the Enable advanced filters box
• Enter the date range following the format mm/dd/yyyy

Once all the variable products created between August 1 and August 31, 2021, are found, they will be displayed in the spreadsheet.

d) Find product variations by price

Let’s say you need to delete all variable products priced at $19.99.

To do this, you can simply enter the following values in the Search tool:

• Enable the Search on variations? and the Enable advanced filters checkboxes
• Field: Regular price (_regular_price)
• Operator: =
• Value: Enter the price you want to search for
• Finally, Run the search.

After executing the search, you’ll see all the variable products with the price entered displayed.

e) Look for product variations missing featured image

Now we are going to search for all the variable products that are missing their featured image in order to delete them.

To do this, enter the values below:

• Enable the Search on variations? and the Enable advanced filters checkboxes
• Field: Featured image (_featured_image)
• Operator: =
• Value: Leave the field empty
• Finally, Run the search.

Now that the search is complete, we’ll be able to see all the variable products that are missing their featured image.

If when filtering all your variable products without featured images you decide that instead of deleting them you want to add an image, you can check this tutorial.

3. Delete WooCommerce product variations

Once the products are filtered, they will be displayed on the spreadsheet, so you just need to select one of the following options to delete them completely:

a) Delete product variations manually in the spreadsheet

To be more specific when deleting your variations, you can do it individually from the spreadsheet.

You must go to the Status column and select the Delete completely option on each variable product you wish to delete.

When you have selected the delete option on all the products you want, you just need to Save.

b) Remove all product variations in bulk

If you want to eliminate all the variable products filtered by any of the methods shown above, you can do it in the following way:

• Hover over the Bulk Edit tool.
• Click the Delete option.

Once you do that, a window will pop up, and you just have to make sure the fields are correctly filled.

• Select the rows that you want to update: Edit all the rows from my current search
• Edit only variations

Then click on Execute Now to remove your products completely.

After these simple steps, all the variations from your selected products will be removed.

Remember that parent products won’t be affected.

You can read this tutorial where we show you how to remove all variations and how to manually select products to remove their variations in bulk.

As you can see, WP Sheet Editor makes it easy for you to manage your WooCommerce store by allowing you to filter, edit, or delete all the WooCommerce product variations you want.