I used the embedded feature to tie together a blog with my forum. While testing I deleted all those posts. Now that I’m trying to re-create the integration I realised that deleting posts just don’t actually delete them, it just hides them. So, now the integration is broken because users don’t have access to them. How can I: Really delete the topics so that the embedding can re-create them? OR find a list of all the “deleted” posts so that I can undelete them? (C.f. Embed Discourse comments on another website via Javascript - #115)

Search example.com/latest?status=deleted, find the deleted topic and click the Un-delete button [image]

By site setting the posts you deleted are only hidden (to all except admins) for 24 h. In this period you can undelete all of them. After 24 h they are deleted forever.

@Trash: Thanks, but this setting doesn’t apply to topics, only to posts. In any case, I don’t think it even really deletes them from the database, which is what I’m asking for. @zee: Where is this? I looked under http://www.example.com/users/my_admin_user/activity/topics but I can’t find anything. (Though, again, I’m talking about topics not posts.)

Trash: By site setting the posts you deleted are only hidden (to all except admins) for 24 h. This site setting is unrelated – it only applies to posts deleted by the author, which will stick around as (deleted by author, will be removed in 24 hours unless flagged) for the specified time. [image] alehandrof: Where is this? I looked under http://www.example.com/users/my_admin_user/activity/topics but I can’t find anything. Profiles with deleted topics once showed a red “notification” to staff members, but it seems to be gone. Maybe this was dropped when the Activity page was restructured (by @sam if I recall correctly). You can definitely use the Data Explorer to find deleted topics, though. And here’s how: Run this query: SELECT * FROM topics WHERE deleted_at is not NULL AND archetype = 'regular' Look through the list to find the topic, and memorize the ID. Then, visit /t/ in your Discourse install to view the topic. From there, you can easily restore the topic.

As admin the posts you have deleted should be listed here: http://www.example.com/users/{your-username-here}/deleted-posts This is linked from the top of your profile page, clicking the [image] button will show something like this in the top left: [image] Click “deleted posts” to see the posts you have deleted.

There is also the querystring (also works with category/latest page) /latest?status=deleted

@DeanMarkTaylor: thanks for pointing out this helpful, though well-hidden, feature. But it only lists posts, not topics. The solutions that @fefrei and @cpradio suggested work fine, though the latter is simpler to use. Unfortunately I can’t undelete topics at all. I have two admin accounts, the one that was used during embedding to create the topics in the first place ( adminbot) and my personal account (alex). I tried undeleting the topics with both accounts and neither works. The topics remain deleted. Is there a way to really delete the topics?

This is risky, and I’d advise you wait until a Discourse Team member can provide better feedback, but something like this should work from the Rails console, so long as you know the topic ids you want to delete. Topic.find(topic_id).destroy

@alehandrof Sorry wasn’t online last few days, What I was talking about @DeanMarkTaylor posted a screen shot

I’m having trouble following as there at least 2 if not 3 issues being discussed. In regards to Topics, in the context of deleting / undeleting topics Discourse considers the OP as the Topic. That is, the topic is the first post. In other words, if the first post is deleted (the trash can icon), the topic is deleted. Regardless of how many replies it might have. Conversely, if the first post has been deleted, the “counter-clockwise circular arrow” icon can be used to undelete the OP, thus in effect undeleting the topic. As far as “really” deleting a topic, as in removing all trace of it from the database. I don’t know, but I would strongly suggest this not be attempted. There is a lot of cross-indexing of tables and unless there is some type of DELETE CASCADE that I haven’t seen yet things could break in the most horrible way imaginable.

How can I delete or undelete topics?

Product Support

zainab (Zainab) March 29, 2016, 9:40am 2

If all the posts you deleted was created by you, then under your profile you can see what posts you deleted and then you can undo the delete

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How can I delete or undelete topics?

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