# Cleanup orphaned persons

> Cleanup orphan persons deletes the persons that no title uses anymore, left by older versions of Dbmovies or by deleted titles. This page explains what an orphan person is, what is kept, and how to run the cleanup safely.

Source: https://doothemes.com/docs/dbmovies/tools/cleanup-orphaned-persons

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![The Cleanup orphan persons panel in the importer, before starting, with its warnings](https://cdn.wupdater.com/dbmovies/docs/3503907073e8adab.webp)

## Overview

A person is **orphaned** when no title uses them anymore: no movie or TV show lists them in its cast or crew. Orphan persons take up space in your database and can show up as empty person pages.

Since Dbmovies 1.3.32, persons do not pile up anymore. When an update removes a person from a title and no other title uses them, Dbmovies deletes the person right away. This tool cleans up the orphans left by:

- **older versions of Dbmovies**, which could leave persons behind when updating titles;
- **titles you deleted permanently**, together with the persons only they used.

You find it in the importer: open the arrow next to **Meta updater** and choose **Cleanup orphan persons**. You can also open it directly by adding `?tool=orphan-cleanup` to the address of the importer.

## What is deleted and what is kept

- **Deleted:** persons that are not linked to any title, in any status.
- **Kept:** persons linked to a title that is a draft, scheduled or in the trash, even though their page does not show that title yet.

Only persons are cleaned. Genres, release years, countries and tags are not touched.

## Before you start

- **Run the Meta Updater first.** An update links each title to its current cast and crew again, so some persons that look orphaned get a title back and are skipped by the cleanup. See [Metaupdater](https://doothemes.com/docs/dbmovies/tools/metaupdater).
- **Keep a recent database backup.** The cleanup cannot be undone: deleted persons lose their profile, photo and biography. If a title needs them again, they are created again from TMDb on its next import or update.

## Running the cleanup

1. Open **Cleanup orphan persons** in the importer.
2. Click **Cleanup**. The panel counts the orphan persons it found and shows a preview of the first 50, with their name and TMDb ID.
3. Confirm. The persons are deleted in batches, and the panel shows how many were deleted, skipped and failed, and the time left.

You can close the panel and keep using the importer: the cleanup goes on while the page stays open. If you leave the page or click **Stop**, run it again later: it simply continues with the persons that are still orphaned.

![The Cleanup orphan persons panel in the importer, with the number of orphan persons found and the deleted, skipped and errors counters](https://cdn.wupdater.com/dbmovies/docs/77fcfc5b4b8f40f6.webp)

## How often to run it

You do not need to run it regularly. Run it once after updating from a version older than 1.3.32, and again after you delete many titles.