Title: Footnote (empty Metadata)
Last modified: August 6, 2025

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# Footnote (empty Metadata)

 *  [poppydev](https://wordpress.org/support/users/poppydev/)
 * (@poppydev)
 * [10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/footnote-empty-metadata/)
 * Hi WordPress team,
 * I’m using WordPress primarily as a social media management tool, and I recently
   discovered, while developing a custom metadata inspector, that a `footnotes` 
   meta field is automatically being created whenever a new post or page is made.
   Occasionally, this field also appears across all posts within a category, which
   becomes difficult to manage.
 * I understand this `footnotes` feature was introduced in WordPress 6.3 as part
   of the new block editor functionality. While I appreciate the intent behind it,
   I have no plans to use it in my workflow. My use case prioritises clean metadata
   for debugging and automation purposes, and having unused or unnecessary meta 
   entries like `footnotes` makes this more difficult.
 * At the moment, I’m resorting to manually removing it in `functions.php` using:
 * `add_action('save_post', function($post_id) {
   if ( ! in_array(get_post_type($
   post_id), ['post', 'page']) ) {return;}if (get_post_meta($post_id, 'footnotes')){
   delete_post_meta($post_id, 'footnotes');}}, 20);
 * This workaround is not ideal and feels like an unnecessary step. It would be 
   incredibly helpful if WordPress provided an option to **disable the footnotes
   block entirely** (either via a setting or a filter), or at least prevent it from
   creating this meta field unless it’s explicitly used.
 * Thanks for your time, and I hope you’ll consider adding a way to disable this
   in a future release.
 * Kind regards

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)

 *  [Mridul Goswami](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mridulgoswami/)
 * (@mridulgoswami)
 * [10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/footnote-empty-metadata/#post-18588968)
 * Hi there, 
   Your temporary fix appears to be absolutely fine.looks like you are
   requesting a feature here and I recommend posting your issue on:
    - 
    - Gutenberg GitHub issues: [https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues](https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues)
 * Your issue will be looked into by the right team and might be prioritised based
   on the case.
    -  This reply was modified 10 months ago by [Mridul Goswami](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mridulgoswami/).
 *  Thread Starter [poppydev](https://wordpress.org/support/users/poppydev/)
 * (@poppydev)
 * [10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/footnote-empty-metadata/#post-18589400)
 * Thank you for this. I have requested a ‘Feature’ under GitHub and just copied
   my original issue on here, that explains the problem, solution and potential 
   request.

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)

The topic ‘Footnote (empty Metadata)’ is closed to new replies.

 * In: [Fixing WordPress](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/how-to-and-troubleshooting/)
 * 3 replies
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [poppydev](https://wordpress.org/support/users/poppydev/)
 * Last activity: [10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/footnote-empty-metadata/#post-18589400)
 * Status: not resolved

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