# How to throttle the Heartbeat API

> WordPress polls your server every 15–60 seconds through admin-ajax. Slow that down or switch it off per context, without losing autosave where you need it.

- Category: Optimization
- Canonical: https://xspeedcache.com/docs/heartbeat/

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WordPress's Heartbeat API keeps browser and server in sync — autosaving drafts, warning when someone else is editing, refreshing notifications. It does that by polling `admin-ajax.php` every 15 to 60 seconds, for every open tab. On a busy site with several editors, that's a lot of requests for something most visitors never benefit from. This panel controls it **per context**, so you can slow it where it's wasteful and keep it where it's useful.

> **Where to find it**
>
> 1. In your WordPress admin, click **xSpeed Cache** in the left menu.
> 2. In the xSpeed Cache sidebar, open the **Optimization** group.
> 3. Click the **Heartbeat** card.
>
> *Shortcut: open `wp-admin/admin.php?page=xspeed#/performance/heartbeat` directly.*
>
> ✅ This panel is part of **xSpeed Cache (Free)**.

![The heartbeat settings](https://xspeedcache.com/_astro/heartbeat-settings.hRz8PQrt.png)

1. **Dashboard** — heartbeat on `/wp-admin/` screens.
2. **Editor** — heartbeat in the post and block editor.
3. **Frontend** — heartbeat on your public site.
4. **Throttle Frequency** — the interval used by throttled contexts.

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## Settings at a glance

| Setting | Default | What it does |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **Dashboard** | Throttle | Heartbeat on `/wp-admin/` screens. |
| **Editor** | Throttle | Heartbeat in the post / block editor. |
| **Frontend** | Disable | Heartbeat on the public site. |
| **Throttle Frequency** | 60 s | Interval for throttled contexts. Range 15–300. |

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## How it works

Each of the three contexts takes one of three behaviours:

| Behaviour | Effect |
| --- | --- |
| **Keep** | Leave WordPress's default polling alone. |
| **Throttle** | Poll at the interval you set below, instead of the default. |
| **Disable** | No polling in that context at all. |

The defaults are already the sensible configuration — **Throttle** for Dashboard and Editor, **Disable** for Frontend — so this panel usually needs no changes. What it gives you is per-context control, which matters because the three contexts have genuinely different requirements.

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## The three contexts

**Dashboard** (default: Throttle) covers `/wp-admin/` screens — notifications and general syncing. Throttling is a safe default: nothing here needs second-by-second accuracy.

**Editor** (default: Throttle) covers the post and block editor, and this is the one to think about before changing. Heartbeat is what powers **autosave** and **co-editing locks** — the warning that someone else is already editing a post. The panel's guidance is exact: *"Disable only if you do not need autosave or co-edit locks."*

Throttling is fine. **Disabling means no autosave** — if a browser crashes mid-draft, the work is gone. On a multi-author site it also means two people can edit the same post without either being warned. Only disable this if you're the sole author and you save deliberately.

**Frontend** (default: Disable) is the interesting one, and the panel explains why in unusual detail.

A default WordPress site **doesn't load heartbeat on the front end at all** — so on such a site this setting has no visible effect either way. It only matters when a plugin or theme loads heartbeat publicly. WooCommerce cart fragments do; membership and notification plugins often do too.

When that happens, every visitor's browser starts polling `admin-ajax.php` on a timer. That's real load generated by ordinary visitors, and it bypasses your [Page Cache](https://xspeedcache.com/docs/page-cache/) entirely because `admin-ajax.php` is never cached. **Disable is recommended precisely to stop that polling**, and it's the default for that reason.

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## Throttle Frequency

The interval, in seconds, used by any context set to **Throttle**. Default **60**, range **15–300**.

The panel puts it plainly: *"60 is a sane default; lower = faster sync but more requests."*

| Interval | Trade-off |
| --- | --- |
| **15–30 s** | Near-default responsiveness, modest saving. |
| **60 s** (default) | Autosave still frequent enough to be useful; requests cut substantially. |
| **120–300 s** | Big reduction, but autosave gaps get long enough to lose real work. |

Sixty seconds is a good balance for editing: you'd lose at most a minute of work, while roughly quartering the request volume against WordPress's 15-second editor default.

> ⚠️ **A long interval is a data-loss risk, not just a slower sync.** At 300 seconds you could lose five minutes of writing to a crashed tab. If you push the interval up, do it for Dashboard rather than Editor.

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## Related

- [How to strip WordPress bloat](https://xspeedcache.com/docs/bloat-control/)
- [How to enable Page Cache](https://xspeedcache.com/docs/page-cache/)
- [How to read your cache diagnostics](https://xspeedcache.com/docs/cache-diagnostics/)