I am really liking Discourse, it works really well but one thing I am struggling with is not being able to delete topics and posts permanently, like from the DB/server, not just hiding them. I don’t see why this isn’t already built in? - I want to be able to permanently delete because I don’t see why I should keep around test posts, spam or posts which need to be removed because they break code of conduct or are of low quality/copyrighted. I am used to using forums which allow you to actually delete stuff completely, is this possible or am I missing something? I think soft deleting is a good idea but having the choice to delete from the DB as well is useful.

We now have the can_permanently_delete setting you can use to hard delete posts and post revisions from the UI. :partying_face: You can read more about that here: [image] Introducing permanently delete post functionality megaphoneAnnouncements When a post is deleted in Discourse, we perform a soft-delete. This means that post is still present in the database in case an administrator wants to recover it later. A soft-delete is not sufficient when the deleted post contains sensitive information and must be pruned from the database completely. For those situations, we are introducing the ability to permanently delete a post. [image] To use this feature, enable the can permanently delete setting. However, please be aware of the risks i…

Discussed here: [image] How to remove post completely? Support Hey there! I want to remove a post completely. For example can I delete post shown below? I don’t want to see this deleted post shown in red, even if they’re only visible to staff. (If you wondered why I want to remove it, because I have obsession.) [image] I think discourse is a very pleasant forum software. But sometimes it makes me laugh. I can do a lot of thing as an admin, but I can’t delete post completely… What a contradiction! blush

From reading most of the other topics regarding this problem of not having such a feature to delete something forever, I disagree and I feel it should be a core feature. A great example of why this feature would be useful is what if I had a category that was going to be completely closed because either the community has changed direction or that category was just not needed any more, why would I want to keep lots of topics and “hide” them? - Even if its MBs of disk space, admins should be able to delete these completely.

There is a setting which limits how many posts can be deleted at one time with the Delete All Posts button. The default is 15 posts. It’s here in your Dashboard: /admin/site_settings/category/users. Scroll down to delete all posts max and change that. If users have a lot of posts in a topic, it could take a while to get rid of them all if it’s set to a low number. If a user has uploaded a file and it is deleted, it’s not permanently deleted until after a grace period has expired. (Think Windows Recycle Bin.) The default number is 180 days. This can be adjusted here: admin/site_settings/category/files and scrolling down to purge deleted uploads grace period days.

Why is it not possible to permanently delete topics or posts?

Product Support

Canapin (Coin-coin le Canapin) October 4, 2020, 2:12pm 2

Discussed here:

Topic		Replies	Views
Deleted replies and topics - are they purged from db or do they stay forever in db? Product Support	1	580	September 28, 2023
If I want to completely delete a post, I should just hide them? Product Support	12	5563	May 11, 2021
How to remove post completely? Product Support	2	9276	October 25, 2023
How to delete post permanently? Product Support	1	323	August 6, 2024
How can I permanently delete a topic with multiple posts? Product Support permanently-delete	5	348	July 29, 2026

Why is it not possible to permanently delete topics or posts?

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