# Anonmyize all users on a discourse instance?

**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/anonmyize-all-users-on-a-discourse-instance/238659
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [September 10, 2022, 10:28pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/anonmyize-all-users-on-a-discourse-instance/238659 "2022-09-10T22:28:34Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![user12](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/e0b2c6/32.png) [@user12](https://meta.discourse.org/u/user12)
#### Post date: [September 10, 2022, 10:28pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/anonmyize-all-users-on-a-discourse-instance/238659/1 "2022-09-10T22:28:34Z")

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Hello, I have a discourse instance I am working on archiving.

I am using HTTRACK as recommend here

> [@Archive an old forum "in place" to start a new Discourse forum](https://meta.discourse.org/t/archive-an-old-forum-in-place-to-start-a-new-discourse-forum/13433):
>
> When possible, we recommend archiving old forums rather than importing them into Discourse. Sometimes this isn’t possible, for various reasons, but getting a fresh start and moving into a new community platform without carrying all your old baggage across is often appealing. [image] Maybe your community needs a reboot. But how do you: Keep the valuable information at old forums around without keeping that ancient forum software running, too, with all its future security vulnerabilities? A…

However, there is something not considered in the archive posts, if there is a user, under the GDPR they have the right to request their account to get deleted/anonymized, which is going to be difficult with a static site.

So instead of dealing of this, is there a way to anonymize the whole instance? Maybe except the admin and some other users.

In general, it would be great if Discourse would develop an included archival tool, to do all of this automatically(build static site, anonymize users, etc.)

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### Author: ![itsbhanusharma](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/itsbhanusharma/32/180717_2.png) [@itsbhanusharma](https://meta.discourse.org/u/itsbhanusharma)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2022, 4:53am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/anonmyize-all-users-on-a-discourse-instance/238659/2 "2022-09-11T04:53:36Z")

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There is a rake task that fits your needs

 ![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/meta/original/4X/c/2/4/c240d98f84a90abc0db69de6e0eb7cad42042ac9.png)

```plaintext
cd /var/discourse
./launcher enter app
rake users:anonymize_all

```

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### Author: ![system](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/system/32/443519_2.png) [@system](https://meta.discourse.org/u/system)
#### Post date: [October 11, 2022, 4:54am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/anonmyize-all-users-on-a-discourse-instance/238659/3 "2022-10-11T04:54:09Z")

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