Title: Track a widget usage?
Last modified: January 27, 2020

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# Track a widget usage?

 *  Resolved [myblogisgreat](https://wordpress.org/support/users/myblogisgreat/)
 * (@myblogisgreat)
 * [6 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/track-a-widget-usage/)
 * Hi,
    Is there any way to track where an Elementor Widget is being (if?) used?
   Example, using some multi-cool Elementor plugin that gives me loads of post galleries.
   By some reason I want to stop using this cool plugin, but of course I have no
   idea on which page/post I have used it earlier. I want to avoid content being
   removed if I just disable and delete the plugin.

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

 *  [pingram](https://wordpress.org/support/users/pingram3541/)
 * (@pingram3541)
 * [6 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/track-a-widget-usage/#post-12369720)
 * I can’t think of any utility offhand except maybe a search and replace type tool
   in your database. Maybe even a tool like [Query Monitor](https://wordpress.org/plugins/query-monitor/)
   to see each page/post’s query and every filter/hook used on said page.
 * – All widgets by default store their configuration data in the options table.
 * – All instances of a particular widget type are under one option as a serialized
   array.
 * – Each widget type has their own option name in the form of “widget_{$widget-
   >id_base}”
 * For example, the text widget’s class is WP_Widget_Text. The ID base is the class
   name with “WP_Widget_” stripped out and lowercased, hence “text”. Thus the option
   name for all text widgets is “widget_text”.
 * Since page builders like Elementor use and execute widgets in their own way, 
   I’d also run a check against the post_meta table to check for any instances and
   then reference the post id of which that meta is attached.
 * Keep in mind, saved revisions and transients may also likely exist with the widget’s
   name instance even if that widget has been removed from a particular page/post
   and wouldn’t necessarily cause any issue if the widget’s plugin were to be disabled
   and removed however if a restore were to be used pulling in meta that calls that
   widget again it could cause a problem, I am not entirely sure how WordPress or
   Elementor handles that, if it’s graceful or not.
 *  Thread Starter [myblogisgreat](https://wordpress.org/support/users/myblogisgreat/)
 * (@myblogisgreat)
 * [6 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/track-a-widget-usage/#post-12369887)
 * Thank you so much for your thorough explanation!
    Thumbs up!

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

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 * 2 replies
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [myblogisgreat](https://wordpress.org/support/users/myblogisgreat/)
 * Last activity: [6 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/track-a-widget-usage/#post-12369887)
 * Status: resolved