As owners of WordPress websites, we all aim to provide a quick and efficient user experience. This maintains visitor interest and boosts our websites’ search rankings. But when we check our website performance on page speed insights, almost all of us face an error like ” remove unused CSS file” and you all might be curious to know “How to remove unused CSS in WordPress website?

I am not the type of person who will dedicate countless hours attempting to achieve a speed score of 100. However, I managed to arrive there with minimal effort by the time I wrote this article.

In this guide, I will detail my errors and the solutions I implemented. I will solve this issue by implementing two methods with two different plugins.

What Is Unused CSS in WordPress?

CSS in WordPress that is not necessary for displaying the page is considered unused CSS. The additional code may cause a delay in loading a webpage, resulting in a negative user experience. Slower loading times can impact your search rankings and lead to decreased site traffic.

By utilizing Google Pagespeed Insights, you can observe the impact of unused CSS code on your website. A section labeled ‘Remove unused CSS’ will display which CSS files are impacting your loading speeds.

What is the reason for adding unused CSS in WordPress?

CSS is utilized for designing the look of your WordPress site. The CSS in your WordPress theme is primarily found in one style.css file.

Along with the CSS for your theme, the CSS for your WordPress plugins will also be loaded.

For example, WooCommerce will implement CSS for showcasing products, a page builder plugin will introduce its own CSS for designing custom pages, and a form builder plugin will incorporate CSS for styling forms.

Next, you also have to include CSS files for web fonts, icon fonts, and other elements.

Typically, these documents are tiny and have fast loading times. On the other hand, if your WordPress website contains numerous plugins, it can cumulatively slow down your site’s speed.

How to solve remove unused CSS error in WordPress?

There are several methods you can use to decrease the amount of unused CSS on your WordPress site.

Nevertheless, eliminating all unused CSS in WordPress would be a challenging endeavor. Due to the inner workings of WordPress, it can be difficult to locate and delete certain unused CSS.

With that being said, we will present you with two techniques for eliminating unused CSS, allowing you to pick the one that suits your needs.

1st Method: Eliminate Unnecessary CSS in WordPress with WP Rocket

This approach is simpler and is advised for those who are new to the subject. Enhances the performance of CSS files on your WordPress site by eliminating the majority of unused CSS, leading to better overall delivery.

We believe it is the optimal choice for novice users as it is simpler and effectively fulfills the primary objective of enhancing user experience. This indicates that your website not only loads quickly on speed testing tools but also gives a fast user experience.

Initially, you must set up and enable the WP Rocket plugin. To learn more, check out our detailed tutorial on installing a WordPress plugin.

After activating, go to the Settings » WP Rocket page and select the ‘File Optimization’ tab.

Afterwards, you must scroll to the CSS Files area and select the ‘Remove Unused CSS (Beta)’ option by checking the box.

Because WP Rocket’s feature is still in beta testing, you will be prompted once more to confirm if you wish to activate the setting. Feel free to proceed and select the ‘Activate Remove Unused CSS’ button.

After enabling the ‘Remove Unused CSS’ option, you can designate CSS filenames, IDs, or classes that should not be deleted in the ‘CSS safelist’ input box. Just input them into the box.

Afterward, scroll down and click the ‘Save Changes’ button to keep your modifications.

After completing this action, WP Rocket will begin to handle your CSS files and display a progress bar.

The plugin needs a couple of minutes to analyze and delete unnecessary CSS files from your website.

Once the plugin finishes, a message stating ‘Remove Unused CSS is complete!’ will be displayed.

Next, go to the Google Pagespeed Insights tool and evaluate your website’s performance.

Remove CSS that blocks rendering on WordPress

WP Rocket allows you to optimize your CSS files and eliminate render-blocking CSS on your site.

To begin, you can access the ‘File Optimization’ section in WP Rocket. Navigate to the CSS Files section below and select the box next to the ‘Optimize CSS delivery’ choice.

This feature creates a CSS file that specifically includes the necessary CSS code for showing the visible section of your website. The file is loaded initially, shows the page to visitors, and later loads other CSS files through deferred loading technology.

By eliminating this CSS that blocks rendering, your website will be visible to users in a quicker manner compared to having to load all CSS files before the page appears.

Once you have turned on the ‘Optimize CSS delivery’ setting, be sure to save your changes and allow WP Rocket to create the required CSS file for every post and page. Your website’s cache will be cleared automatically as well.

After completing the task, you can proceed to evaluate your website’s performance once more with Google Pagespeed Insights.

Second Method: Remove unnecessary CSS in WordPress by utilizing Asset CleanUp

This technique is slightly more advanced but very effective, allowing you to efficiently eliminate any unused CSS from any WordPress webpage.

Nevertheless, it can be complex, requiring thorough testing of your website’s functionality and appearance to ensure everything is working correctly.

Initially, you must set up and enable the Asset Cleanup plugin. To learn more, refer to our detailed tutorial on installing a WordPress plugin.

After activating, go to the Asset CleanUp » Settings page and navigate to the Test Mode tab. You must activate the ‘Enable Test Mode’ option from this point.

This enables you to experiment with various configurations and evaluate them in an administrative capacity without impacting site users.

Following that, you must go to the Asset CleanUp » CSS/JS Manager page. You can remove unnecessary CSS and JavaScript files separately for each page starting from this point.

Initially, it will retrieve your homepage and display all the CSS and JavaScript files that are being loaded on the page.

You must scroll down to examine the files that have been loaded. If you come across an unnecessary file, you have the option to remove it for that specific page, post type, or site in general.

The plugin gives you the option to select certain posts or pages here, or you can find the same choices when editing the post or page in the usual way.

The Asset CleanUp box is located directly beneath the post editor on the post edit page.

The plugin will gather and display all files and assets loaded on your website when a visitor views this page.

Afterward, you can easily remove the unnecessary CSS or JavaScript files that are not necessary on that specific page.

FAQs

Does unused CSS harm the WordPress website?

Unused CSS can potentially harm a WordPress website in a few ways, although the impact might vary depending on the specific circumstances:

Page Load Performance: As WordPress develops a theme, or adds a plugin that loads unused CSS onto a page, the overall size of the CSS resources that the visitor must download increases.

This can result in a delay in the loading time more so if the connection type or the device being used is slow.

Render Blocking: If huge amounts of unused CSS are inserted by the themes or plugins, they would also be part of render-blocking resources.

Implementing CSS ‘above the fold’ blocks parallel downloads of other page content, which decreases both the perceived performance and user experience of the website.

Code Maintainability: It makes it harder to maintain your WordPress theme/plugin with unused CSS files lying around.

It pollutes your stylesheets, and it becomes difficult to pinpoint which styles you are applying.

Mitigating Unused CSS Issues in WordPress:

To address these potential issues, consider the following approaches:

CSS Minification and Concatenation: Minify and combine the CSS files using plugins or tools. This decreases the whole file size and this may help minimize the effect of unused CSS partially.

Manual Removal or Optimization: If it is possible, delete unnecessary styles by hand in the theme and/or plugins to simplify the CSS file.

This can concern employing instruments to discover which of the foremost styles are being utilized on your pages.

CSS Optimization Plugins: This is something that can be rectified through WordPress plugins that deal with CSS delivery optimization and the complete removal of unused styles.

For instance, some plugins can load CSS according to the current page’s need, or load CSS as per optimization strategy that trims off the unused styles.

Performance Testing: Always conduct a performance test of your website using Google PageSpeed Insights, GTmetrix, and webpage tests. com or any other tool of your choice.

Such tools can indicate some problems concerning unused CSS and offer recommendations for these problems.

Theme and Plugin Selection: During the selection of the WordPress themes and plugins, it is essential to examine their effect on the performance of the website, and whether or not they apply load additional CSS.

Choose themes and plugins that have a good amount of performance and exclude the extra items that are not needed.

How much CSS is too much CSS?

Problems with too much CSS arise when it is excessive, which adds to the page load, the number of files or extremely complex selectors, or when it contains many unused styles.

The best way to manage the CSS stylesheets is to always minimize the quantities of the files used, practice modularity while organizing them, and always assess and get rid of the styles that are unnecessary to performance and maintainable WEBSITE.

Does WordPress need CSS?

Yes, every WordPress website has to work with CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) to manage the appearance and look of a web page.

CSS is used to state how content, in a WordPress site, should be styled concerning fonts, colors, layout, and all other aspects concerning design.

Although the WordPress themes are installed with certain styles already defined, CSS customization enables owners/developers to work around the styles that they prefer.

No matter whether one tweaks a theme’s inherent style properties or implements one’s designs, CSS is one of the key components affecting the presentation of and user interactions with WordPress sites.

Can a website work without CSS?

Yes, I can witness that a website can function without CSS. While HTML authors the layout of a web page and the contents of a web page CSS is in charge of the layout of the page.

When CSS is either turned off or the CSS file is not loaded, the HTML formatting is not altered, and as such the content comes out as plain as it can be.

Although the content of the website will remain fully retrievable and operable, the appearance and interactivity will be significantly impaired when using CSS.

Modern websites use CSS for the layout, typography, color, responsiveness, and design; thus, although a website can be created without CSS, it would be a bad idea if one aims to offer a good client experience.