Better Find and Replace

Description

Better Find and Replace offers advanced search and replace functionality, providing a powerful solution for efficient database management without requiring coding experience. Additionally, it incorporates a dynamic real-time word / text replacing feature.

Perfect for post-migration cleanup and bulk edits, Better Find and Replace offers powerful tools to search and replace text, images, and media across your database. With features like case-sensitive matching, serialized data handling, table-specific targeting, and dry-run previews, it ensures safe, precise updates with zero hassle.

The permanent replace ensuring that any replaced text, URL etc is eliminated from your database permanently.
Better find and replace is equipped with powerful features that allow you to visualize the results of search and replace content within your database as well as permanently erasing it. It has the ability to search within complex, serialized data structures and replace them with your own words, making it a powerful tool for managing website content for beginners and experienced users alike.
Additionally, it allows for the removal or un-setting of any element in serialized data by specifying its key.

Effortlessly replace images using a drag-and-drop interface directly from the preview, while ensuring seamless thumbnail regeneration for consistent visuals. Enjoy a blazing-fast image replacement process with enhanced efficiency and precision. When replacing an image, you can also update its alt text, caption, and description — a valuable boost for your SEO.

Another exciting feature: The real-time functionality provides an advanced word masking technique to search and replace text, url ( anything ), leaving no trace behind. The find and replace process takes place before the website is
rendered in the browser and does not impact any other files or databases. With this ultimate solution, easily find and replace text, HTML code, media/image URLs, footer credits,
or any other content within your website without touching the database with the help of an easy-to-use user interface.

Key Features

  • Easy to Use – Clean, user-friendly interface designed for effortless navigation and configuration.
  • Search and Replace Text – Find and replace any text across your site, whether in static or dynamic content.
  • Search and Replace Ajax/jQuery Content – Works seamlessly with content loaded via Ajax or jQuery on the frontend.
  • Find and Replace URLs – Quickly search and replace outdated or incorrect URLs throughout your website.
  • Replace Images and Attachment URLs – Swap out image links and attachment URLs site-wide with precision.
  • Word Masking – Mask specific words site-wide using flexible find and replace rules.
  • Temporary Find-Replace Rules – Create live, non-permanent replacements without altering your database.
  • Edit Footer Credit – Remove or update footer text without modifying HTML or database content.
  • HTML Code Replacement – Replace anything within HTML code blocks, tags, or content.
  • Real-Time Image Replacement – Replace images instantly during page rendering for dynamic updates.
  • Comment Word Filtering – Automatically find and replace inappropriate words in user-submitted comments.
  • Language Replacement – Change words or phrases from one language to another across your site.
  • RegEx Supported – Use regular expressions for complex and pattern-based search and replace operations.
  • HTML Tag & Attribute Replacement – Locate and replace specific HTML tags or attributes throughout your content.
  • Lightning Fast Database Replace – High-speed search and replace operations in posts, postmeta, options, and more.
  • Table Selection – Choose specific database tables for targeted replacements.
  • Dry Run Preview – See a preview of all replacements before applying them to the database.
  • Whole Word Match – Replace only exact word matches in the database to avoid partial replacements.
  • Serialized Data Support – Safely search and replace serialized data without breaking structure or integrity.
  • Remove Serialized Items – Delete specific items from serialized arrays in the database.
  • Role-Based Access – Assign plugin management to specific user roles for better control.
  • Gutenberg and Page Builder Compatible – Fully supports real-time replacements inside block editors and builders.
  • Targeted DB Replacement – Refine search by limiting database replacements to post titles, content, or excerpts.

How to replace in DB?

  • Start by generating a report: Select the Dry Run option located at the bottom of the settings section.
  • Review the report: A modal window will appear, showing the specific rows and data that will be affected by the replacement.
  • Proceed if satisfied: If the preview looks accurate and matches what you intend to replace, simply close the report window, uncheck Dry Run, and click the Find & Replace button.
  • ⚠️ Attention: Please carefully review the dry run report before making any changes. Once replacements are applied to the database, they cannot be undone. The PRO version includes an undo feature, but it must be installed before performing the replacement.
  • ✅ Important Tip: Always run a dry report first to ensure your search term and replacement are correct. If anything looks off, adjust the keyword and repeat the process until the preview shows the desired results.

Pro Features

  • Database Replacement Features:

    • Powerful search and replace in database
    • Ultimate solution for search & replace in serialized data & remove item
    • Automatic backup of the search and replacement data
    • Ultimate easy solution for restore data what you have replaced by mistake
    • Ability to check & replace each item separately which going to be replaced in the database
    • Bulk Replacement on report’s page, generate by dry run option
    • All tables in database
    • Search and replace Unicode Characters UTF-8 ( e.g: U+0026, REČA ) in Database
    • Additional filtering options in default / custom URLs
    • Filter new comments before inserting into Database
    • Filter new post before inserting into Database (Good for auto post generation website)
    • Special feature to search and replace in large table
  • Real-Time Rendering Features:

    • RegEx supported
    • Advance Regex – Powerful code blocks / multi-lines find and replace in real-time (masking) rendering
    • Advance Regex – Any (CSS / JS / HTML) code Block find and replacement in real-time (masking) rendering
    • Masking on Shortcodes
    • Advance filtering options :-
      • Case insensitive – search and replace case sensitive or insensitive
      • Whole Word – search and replace whole word
      • Unicode – search and replace Unicode Characters
      • Skip posts / page / custom taxonomies etc.. urls
      • Skip CSS – External, Internal, Inline
      • Skip JavaScript – External, Internal
      • Skip pages – if you don’t want to apply rules on any specific page
      • Skip posts – if you don’t want to apply rules on any specific posts
      • Bypass rule – keep texts unchanged on specific area with special pattern
      • Bypass rule – keep base links / urls ( post, pages, custom taxonomies etc..) unchanged where find word exists in that URL.

Advance Regex – Code blocks / multi lines find and replacement example – (Real-time Rendering)

Find code block and replace with your own or keep blank *replacement field to remove code block. Let consider the following CSS code block for replace. Put following
code block in find field*

<style media="screen">
    html { margin-top: 32px !important; }
    * html body { margin-top: 32px !important; }
    @media screen and ( max-width: 782px ) {
        html { margin-top: 46px !important; }
        * html body { margin-top: 46px !important; }
    }
</style>

Then put following code block in *Replace field to replace the above code block*

<style>
.site-title a{color: red;}
</style>

Join the elite web professionals who enjoy Better Find And Replace Pro!

➡️ Basic Documentation To Get Started

  • Setup Video Guide – How to install and setup search and replace rules

👉 Real-time search and replace

👉 Search and replace in Database

Forum and Feature Request

For Quick Support, feature request and bug reporting

Visit our forum to share your experience or request features

As it’s open source, check our github development Status

Screenshots

  • Add Find Rule – Plain Text
  • Add Find Rule – RegEx
  • Add Find Rule – jQuery / Ajax Text
  • List of All Masking Rules
  • URLs replacement in Database
  • Media replacement in Database
  • Dry run report
  • List of All Masking Rules with pro features
  • Media replacer
  • Media replacer
  • Media replacer

Installation

  1. Upload the real-time-auto-find-and-replace folder to the ‘/wp-content/plugins/’ directory
  2. Activate Better find and replace through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress

Reviews

Onwa-itolu 6, 2025
Very helpful plugin for anyone moving WordPress site from local to online server. Thank you developers!
Onwa-itolu 2, 2025
Webmasters, bloggers, website owners, I want to let you know that Better Find And Replace works like a charm. I’ve been using the plugin on my sites for about 3 weeks and it gets the job done. All I did was tell it what I wanted to remove and what I wanted to change it to and presto, it was done throughout my sites… over 500 pages and blog posts combined. If I had to do make those changes manually it would be “at it” for the next 3 to 5 months. Wow, what a time saver! I think you would love it. Tony P.
Onwa-asatö 27, 2025
I was using another popular plugin and continuously ran into “max page size errors” when attempting to search and replace text in the database. This plugin had no issues, and did so at blazing speed!
Onwa-asatö 27, 2025
The plugin works as expected, but the lack of an option to disable auto-renewal is driving me crazy. I don’t want to be forced to pay again in a year if I decide to stop using it, and I certainly don’t want to cancel my credit card over this. I sent a couple emails and received no response.
Onwa-asatö 22, 2025
Absolutely brilliant. Saved a massive amount of time when updating my website and I had to bulk change certain elements. One of the best value app I have ever purchased.
Read all 159 reviews

Contributors & Developers

“Better Find and Replace” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.

Contributors

“Better Find and Replace” has been translated into 1 locale. Thank you to the translators for their contributions.

Translate “Better Find and Replace” into your language.

Interested in development?

Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.

Changelog

Version: 1.7.1 ( April 22, 2025 )

  • Update: updated for the latest release

Version: 1.7.0 ( March 26, 2025 )

  • Update: Media replacer updated
  • Update: Video replacer – media replacer

Version: 1.6.9 ( January 30, 2025 )

  • Update: Small issue fixed

Version: 1.6.8 ( January 22, 2025 )

  • Update: Security patch updated

Version: 1.6.7 ( January 19, 2025 )

  • New: Visual Media Replacer: Effortlessly update images with seamless precision!
  • Update: JS script has been modernize for latest browsers

CHECK THE FULL CHANGELOG.