Title: delete_{$meta_type}_metadata
Published: April 25, 2014
Last modified: May 20, 2026

---

# apply_filters( “delete_{$meta_type}_metadata”, null|bool $delete, int $object_id, string $meta_key, mixed $meta_value, bool $delete_all )

## In this article

 * [Description](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/hooks/delete_meta_type_metadata/?output_format=md#description)
 * [Parameters](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/hooks/delete_meta_type_metadata/?output_format=md#parameters)
 * [Source](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/hooks/delete_meta_type_metadata/?output_format=md#source)
 * [Related](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/hooks/delete_meta_type_metadata/?output_format=md#related)
 * [Changelog](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/hooks/delete_meta_type_metadata/?output_format=md#changelog)

[ Back to top](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/hooks/delete_meta_type_metadata/?output_format=md#wp--skip-link--target)

Short-circuits deleting metadata of a specific type.

## 󠀁[Description](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/hooks/delete_meta_type_metadata/?output_format=md#description)󠁿

The dynamic portion of the hook name, `$meta_type`, refers to the meta object type(
blog, post, comment, term, user, or any other type with an associated meta table).

Returning a non-null value will effectively short-circuit the function.

Possible hook names include:

 * `delete_blog_metadata`
 * `delete_post_metadata`
 * `delete_comment_metadata`
 * `delete_term_metadata`
 * `delete_user_metadata`

## 󠀁[Parameters](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/hooks/delete_meta_type_metadata/?output_format=md#parameters)󠁿

 `$delete`null|bool

Whether to allow metadata deletion of the given type.

`$object_id`int

ID of the object metadata is for.

`$meta_key`string

Metadata key.

`$meta_value`mixed

Metadata value. Must be serializable if non-scalar.

`$delete_all`bool

Whether to delete the matching metadata entries for all objects, ignoring the specified
$object_id.
 Default false.

## 󠀁[Source](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/hooks/delete_meta_type_metadata/?output_format=md#source)󠁿

    ```php
    $check = apply_filters( "delete_{$meta_type}_metadata", null, $object_id, $meta_key, $meta_value, $delete_all );
    ```

[View all references](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/files/wp-includes/meta.php/)
[View on Trac](https://core.trac.wordpress.org/browser/tags/7.0/src/wp-includes/meta.php#L448)
[View on GitHub](https://github.com/WordPress/wordpress-develop/blob/7.0/src/wp-includes/meta.php#L448-L448)

## 󠀁[Related](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/hooks/delete_meta_type_metadata/?output_format=md#related)󠁿

| Used by | Description | 
| [delete_metadata()](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/functions/delete_metadata/)`wp-includes/meta.php` |

Deletes metadata for the specified object.

  |

## 󠀁[Changelog](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/hooks/delete_meta_type_metadata/?output_format=md#changelog)󠁿

| Version | Description | 
| [3.1.0](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/since/3.1.0/) | Introduced. |

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