How I Made the Woodmart Theme Super Fast — My Experience Cleaning xts_options and Autoload

My name is Геннадий Працевич, and I’ve been working with WordPress for over 10 years. Today I want to share a very real and practical case.
Here’s what happened: in just 20 minutes, I significantly improved the speed of a site running the Woodmart theme — without installing any extra plugins. All I did was clean up the xts_options settings file and disable unnecessary entries from the автозагрузка in the database. This is not a theory — after these changes, my site started working so smoothly, it felt like a fresh install on a blazing-fast server.

What is xts_options and Why It Affects Performance

The Woodmart theme stores all of its global settings (colors, fonts, headers, footers, buttons, galleries, etc.) in a single field inside the WordPress database — xts_options. This field is stored in the wp_options table and usually marked as автозагрузка = да, meaning WordPress loads it on every single page request — both frontend and backend.

Over time, a site can accumulate:

• empty or unused blocks (especially in the header builder),

• leftover styles from deleted headers,

• settings for features you no longer use (like wishlist, compare, or portfolio),

• backup copies and layout drafts that serve no purpose.

My exported file xts_options_backup.json — downloaded from Woodmart → Theme Settings → Import/Export — was over 34 KB. That’s a huge chunk of data to be loaded on every page view.

Step by Step: What I Did

1. Exported the Current Settings

Inside the Woodmart theme panel, I went to:
Theme Settings → Import/Export → Export Options

I saved the current configuration to a .json file (xts_options_backup_15-05-2025.json) and opened it in a code editor.

2. Removed All the Unused Sections (Manually or via ChatGPT)

Here’s what I removed:

• all keys starting with wishlist_ — the feature was disabled anyway;

• all compare_* и portfolio_* settings — never used them;

• old header_builder_backup blocks;

• template leftovers like "{{index}}": {} that were left behind from header/section builders.

The result: file size dropped from 34 KB to 29 KB, and after deep cleanup — even more.

3. Imported the Cleaned Version

I went back to Theme Settings → Import/Export, selected my cleaned file xts_options_backup_superclean.json and imported it.

All visuals remained perfectly intact — but the site started running noticeably faster, especially inside the admin panel.

The Real Bottleneck: автозагрузка in wp_options

WordPress autoloads all entries from wp_options with the flag автозагрузка = да.
If your server doesn’t use Redis or Memcached, this means the data is pulled from the database on every single request.

I used the Query Monitor plugin and opened the Autoloaded Options tab.
Here’s what I found:

• aioseo_options — over 10 KB loaded for a plugin I no longer use;

• WpFastestCache, WpFastestCacheCDN — not required to autoload;

• yith_system_info — unnecessary system data;

• fs_active_plugins — leftover from Freemius-based plugins.

SQL Query I Ran to Disable These:

After this cleanup, my site felt much snappier. Pages saved instantly in the admin, and the backend was incredibly responsive.

Why It Works

The Woodmart theme is feature-rich, but it doesn’t automatically remove options you stop using.
So even when you disable modules like wishlist, compare, or portfolio — their settings remain in the database.

Same with plugins: you may delete one, but its settings stay behind, bloating your wp_options table and slowing everything down.

What If You Don’t Know What to Remove?

You don’t need to manually understand or audit the xts_options.json structure.
If you use ChatGPT, just upload your file and ask:

“Please clean my Woodmart theme settings file by removing unused sections like wishlist, compare, portfolio, and backup blocks. Return a clean .json ready for re-import.”

GPT can easily navigate the structure, remove unnecessary data, and return a clean, importable file.
That’s exactly what I did — and it saved me hours.

The Result

The site running on Woodmart now works like brand new.
I didn’t change the theme. I didn’t upgrade the hosting. I didn’t install a performance plugin.
All I did was remove the junk that quietly piled up over the years.

I still keep a backup of the original settings file (xts_options_backup.json), just in case. But honestly — I haven’t needed it.

If you’d like help cleaning your database or optimizing your own Woodmart setup — I’m happy to assist.

Written by Gennadii Pratsevych
https://speedwppro.com/about-contact/
info@speedwppro.com