WooCommerce gives you three order actions on a single order: Email invoice / order details to customer, Resend new order notification, and Regenerate download permissions. On the orders list you get bulk actions instead: Move to Trash plus four status changes, to Processing, On hold, Completed or Cancelled, with Restore and Delete permanently appearing only in the trash view. Both lists are short on purpose, because each one fires something real: an email to a customer, a reset of download access, or a status change that cannot be undone. This guide covers what every action does, when the bulk list beats opening an order, and how to attach automatic PDF invoicing to a status change.
In this article, you’ll learn about:
- WooCommerce Bulk Actions for Orders
- Edit the WooCommerce Order
- Automatic PDF Invoices for WooCommerce Orders
- Frequently asked questions
WooCommerce Order & Orders Bulk Actions
The order screen is where the store owner spends most of their admin time. It is the place where you handle orders, billing, refunds and shipping.
Bulk actions or one order at a time?
You have two ways to work with orders, and they are good at different things.
The orders list in WooCommerce → Orders shows order numbers, statuses and billing and shipping addresses. It is limited by design, and that is what makes it fast. Use it when the same thing has to happen to many orders.
The single order screen opens when you click an order number. Inside you get the order elements grouped in meta boxes: general details, items, order actions, notes and more.
Editing order data, changing line items and running order actions is possible only here. The bulk list cannot do any of it.
One thing to check before you start: if your store runs High Performance Order Storage, orders live in their own database tables rather than among posts. WP Desk telemetry from 19,803 WooCommerce stores, collected in August 2026, shows 34.4% of stores with HPOS enabled. The screens look almost identical, but snippets and plugins written for the old storage may not see your orders at all.
How to run a bulk action
- Go to the WooCommerce → Orders menu.
- Tick the checkboxes next to the orders you want to change.
- Hint. The checkbox in the table header selects everything on the current page, not every order in the store.
- Open the Bulk Actions dropdown.
- Choose the action and click Apply.
- WooCommerce processes the orders one by one. How long it takes depends on the number of orders and your server.
Default Bulk Actions for Orders
By default, you may run the following bulk actions:
| Bulk action | What it does | Reversible |
|---|---|---|
| Move to Trash | Moves the orders to the trash | Yes, until the trash is emptied |
| Restore | Brings trashed orders back. Visible only in the trash view | Not applicable |
| Delete Permanently | Removes the orders for good. Visible only in the trash view | No |
| Change status to processing | Sets the status and sends the Processing order email | Status yes, email no |
| Change status to on-hold | Sets the status and sends the Order on-hold email | Status yes, email no |
| Change status to completed | Sets the status and sends the Completed order email | Status yes, email no |
| Change status to cancelled | Cancels the orders and restores stock | Status yes, stock movement no |
Two things that surprise people the first time.
Bulk status changes send emails. Switching two hundred orders to Completed sends two hundred Completed order messages, and there is no way to recall them. If you are cleaning up old orders rather than genuinely completing them, disable the relevant email in WooCommerce → Settings → Emails first, run the change, then switch it back on.
Trashed orders do not sit there forever. WordPress empties the trash automatically after thirty days by default, so an order moved there as a temporary measure will eventually be gone.
Edit WooCommerce Order
Every WooCommerce order groups its data into several sections. Open a particular order by clicking its number on the WooCommerce → Orders page.
WooCommerce Order Management
Each section holds a different part of the order.
You may edit, add or remove the available information. Click the pencil icon to open a section, or use the buttons and inputs directly. Save with Update.
Line items are the exception worth knowing about: WooCommerce only lets you edit them while the order is Pending payment or On hold. Once an order is Processing or Completed, the items are locked, because changing what was sold after payment would make the order disagree with the money received and with any invoice already issued.
WooCommerce Order Actions
By default, you can use the following WooCommerce Order Actions:
- Email invoice / order details to customer – Choose the action, then click the > or Apply button. The customer receives the order details email. For an unpaid order it also contains a payment link, which makes this the standard way to chase a bank transfer that never arrived. It matters more than it looks: our telemetry shows 86.2% of orders placed as guests, and a guest has no account to log into, so this email is their only route back to the order.
- Resend new order notification – Resends the new order email to the admin. Useful when the original went missing, which usually points at a deliverability problem rather than at WooCommerce.
- Regenerate download permissions – Recreates access to the downloadable products and resets the download counter. Use it when a customer has run out of downloads or when you replaced the file and want them to get the new version.
Three actions is the whole core list. Anything beyond it, from printing labels to issuing invoices, is added by a plugin, and each plugin adds its own entries to this same dropdown.
Status Control for WooCommerce orders
You may use the bulk actions in WooCommerce → Orders to quickly change the order status for one or many orders.
Inside a single order, the Status dropdown does the same thing for that one order.
The bulk list only offers four of the statuses. Refunded, Failed and Pending payment have to be set on the order itself, which is deliberate: those three usually need a look at the order before anyone changes anything.
Read more about WooCommerce order statuses and what each one means for stock and emails.
To change what happens after a payment or a status change, see the WooCommerce hooks list, and the guide to the woocommerce_payment_complete and woocommerce_order_status_completed hooks.
Automatic PDF Invoices for WooCommerce Orders
To stop issuing invoices by hand, use the Flexible Invoices for WooCommerce PRO plugin.
The plugin creates PDF invoices for WooCommerce orders automatically, based on the order statuses you choose for invoicing.
This is where bulk actions and invoicing meet. A bulk status change triggers invoicing for every order in the batch, so one click can issue fifty documents. That is the point of the setup, and also the reason to test it on two orders before running it on fifty: invoices take numbers from a continuous series, and a document issued by mistake has to be cancelled with a correction, not deleted.
The plugin also adds its own section to the order edit screen, with invoice actions for that single order.
Visit the Flexible Invoices plugin page and check all its functions in the documentation.
To see how it automates invoicing, try it in the free demo, where the new order actions are visible too. If you have any questions, let us know.
Summary
Core WooCommerce keeps both lists short. Three actions on a single order, and on the list Move to Trash plus four status changes. The rule for choosing between them is simple: the bulk list for doing the same thing to many orders, the order screen for anything that needs looking at first. Before any bulk run, remember that status changes send their emails, that cancelling restores stock, that the trash empties itself after thirty days, and that if invoicing is tied to a status, the same click issues the documents too. Test on two orders, then run the batch.
Frequently asked questions
What are WooCommerce order actions?
Three actions available in the Order actions box on a single order: Email invoice / order details to customer, Resend new order notification, and Regenerate download permissions. Anything else in that dropdown was added by a plugin.
Which bulk actions does WooCommerce offer for orders?
Move to Trash and four status changes, to Processing, On hold, Completed and Cancelled. Restore and Delete Permanently appear only when you are viewing the trash.
Does a bulk status change send emails to customers?
Yes, one per order, and they cannot be recalled. If you are tidying up rather than genuinely changing the state of the orders, disable the relevant email in WooCommerce settings before running the action.
Can I undo a bulk action?
You can set the status back, but the side effects stay: emails are already sent, stock has already moved, and any invoice issued by the change still exists. Delete Permanently cannot be undone at all.
How do I resend an invoice or order details to a customer?
Open the order, choose Email invoice / order details to customer in the Order actions box and apply it. For an unpaid order the email includes a payment link, which is the usual way to chase a missing transfer.
Why can I not edit the items in an order?
Line items are editable only while the order is Pending payment or On hold. After payment the items are locked, so that the order cannot drift away from the amount actually paid.
How long do trashed orders stay in the trash?
Thirty days by default, after which WordPress removes them permanently. Treat the trash as a short grace period, not as an archive.
Can an invoice be issued automatically from a bulk status change?
Yes. If invoicing is tied to a status, changing that status in bulk issues a document for every order in the batch. Test on a couple of orders first, because a wrongly issued invoice has to be cancelled with a correction document.
