Filter out unwanted order item meta data from Woocommerce email notifications

In the order email templates (for example email-order-items.php), WooCommerce uses the function wc_display_item_meta to display product details in the order table. The function code is present in the wc-template-functions.php file (line number 3011). I am copying the function code below for reference

function wc_display_item_meta( $item, $args = array() ) {
    $strings = array();
    $html    = '';
    $args    = wp_parse_args( $args, array(
        'before'    => '<ul class="wc-item-meta"><li>',
        'after'     => '</li></ul>',
        'separator' => '</li><li>',
        'echo'      => true,
        'autop'     => false,
    ) );

    foreach ( $item->get_formatted_meta_data() as $meta_id => $meta ) {
        $value     = $args['autop'] ? wp_kses_post( $meta->display_value ) : wp_kses_post( make_clickable( trim( $meta->display_value ) ) );
        $strings[] = '<strong class="wc-item-meta-label">' . wp_kses_post( $meta->display_key ) . ':</strong> ' . $value;
    }

    if ( $strings ) {
        $html = $args['before'] . implode( $args['separator'], $strings ) . $args['after'];
    }

    $html = apply_filters( 'woocommerce_display_item_meta', $html, $item, $args );

    if ( $args['echo'] ) {
        echo $html; // WPCS: XSS ok.
    } else {
        return $html;
    }
}

The problem is: it doesn’t take any arguments that can help me filter out item data that I don’t want to show in the order email. I don’t want to change this function in the wc-template-functions.php as it’s a core file. So, I want to know if there’s a piece of code that I can add to functions.php that’ll somehow modify this wc_display_item_meta function to filter out specific item meta.

Note: I know someone might suggest why not just remove that particular item data from the product details, but that data is essential to internal order processing. I just don’t want it to show to the customers.

Update #1: What meta data I don’t want to show in the order email? Below is a screenshot of an order email. I have highlighted three item data..”Qty Selector”, “Qty” and “Total”. I want all these three to not show in the order email.

Answer

Try the following without any guarantee (as I don’t really have the real necessary keys):

add_filter( 'woocommerce_order_item_get_formatted_meta_data', 'unset_specific_order_item_meta_data', 10, 2);
function unset_specific_order_item_meta_data($formatted_meta, $item){
    // Only on emails notifications
    if( is_admin() || is_wc_endpoint_url() )
        return $formatted_meta;

    foreach( $formatted_meta as $key => $meta ){
        if( in_array( $meta->key, array('Qty Selector', 'Qty', 'Total') ) )
            unset($formatted_meta[$key]);
    }
    return $formatted_meta;
}

Code goes in function.php file of your active child theme (active theme). Tested with other meta data than yours and works. I hope it will work for you too.

Now, the hook used with this code is the right filter hook. It’s located in the WC_Order_Item method get_formatted_meta_data() and allows to filter the order item meta data.