Audit logging is on from the moment Enterprise is activated, recording every category and keeping entries for a year. The Audit Log settings tab is where you change that: which categories are recorded, how long each is kept, and when old entries are removed.

Enabling and Disabling Logging

Navigate to Certificates > Settings > Audit Log. Enable audit logging is the master switch. While it is off, nothing is recorded, and the status line under the switch says which state you are in. Turning it on or off is itself written to the log, so a gap in the record always has an explanation next to it.

What Gets Recorded

The category table lists each kind of administrative action (Templates, Certificates, Settings, Issuers, Directory, Fonts, Batches, License, API keys, API, and Security) with a switch, its current row count, and a Keep for field. Turn a category off to stop recording it. Enter a number of days to give it its own retention; leave the field blank and it uses the site-wide default shown beside it.

Retention

The Retention field sets the site-wide default in days: 365 out of the box. Entries older than their retention are removed by a cleanup that runs once a day. Enter 0 to keep entries forever. Shortening retention shows a preview line before you save, such as “412 rows older than the new limit will be removed at the next cleanup (oldest: 14 March 2025)”, so you can see exactly what a change will cost.

Run cleanup now removes over-age entries immediately instead of waiting for the daily run. It uses the saved values, so save any retention changes first.

Purging the Log

Purge removes every administrative entry permanently, regardless of retention. It asks you to type a confirmation phrase, and when it finishes, exactly one entry remains: the record of the purge, who ran it, and how many rows it removed. Use it when handing a site over or closing a retention obligation, not as routine cleanup.

The Status Panel

At the top of the tab, a small panel shows the total number of audit rows, how many were recorded in the last 24 hours, the date of the oldest row, and when the next cleanup is scheduled. If the next cleanup shows as not scheduled, WordPress scheduled tasks are not running on the site; the same mechanism that publishes scheduled posts.