Auto-close old topics from a migrated forum

support
#1

We migrated to Discourse from another forum software, and I want to close a batch of old topics at once.

Iā€™ve tried using the forum setting for auto-close:

But this seems not to be affecting migrated old topics, as they are still open. How can I achieve this? (want to close all topics which are older than 720 hours=30 days)

Thanks

1 Like
#2

Youā€™ll need to do that via the rails console.

#3

Can you elaborate more on how?

#4

Click the ā€œmenuā€ icon next to the Topic column header, select the topics to close, click the wrench in the upper right, and select ā€œClose Topicsā€ in the Bulk Actions menu.

@zogstrip console not required!

#5

That is true, but will be painful with more than a few screens worth of topicsā€¦

2 Likes
#6

Iā€™m in the same situation, but have around 24000 topics to close manually.
We moved to Discourse software 3 weeks ago.

Manually I have now closed old topics from the years 2003 and 2004.

I still have to manually close old topics from the years
2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015.

Quite a big job ahead of meā€¦ !!!

Is there an easier way to do this job?

#7

Maybe the number of old topics I have to close manually is much bigger than I have thought.

The exact number for January 2005 was 820.

#8

I would use the rails console to close all the old topics.

#9

Thank You for your reply, Zogstrip.

I do not know the console You are referring to.

I have been clicking the radio buttons to select the unclosed topics and then using the close batch function in the ā€œwrench-toolā€.

But my experience with this function is, that I regularly gets an error-message if choosing more than 40 to 50 topics to close at one time.

So its very elaborate to close thousands of topics, 30 at a time.

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#10

I would SSH into the server and then

cd /var/discourse
./launcher enter app
rails c
Topic.where(closed: false).where("created_at < '2015-01-01'").find_each do |topic| 
  topic.update_status("closed", true, Discourse.system_user)
end

And you should have all the topics created before January 1st 2015 closed :wink:

11 Likes
Mass close topics?
Closing a topic in console
CommonMark testing started here!
#11

Thank You so much, Zogstrip!
:+1:

Iā€™ve shown Your tip to our serveradministrator, and heā€™ll take action.

You have helped us a lot.
Thank You!

2 Likes
#12

Once more: Thank You, Zogstrip!

Our server worked hard for one day :hourglass_flowing_sand:and one night :sparkles:

Your tip deserves a tip :gift:

It saved me and my fingers from thousands and thousands and thousands of clicks.

2 Likes
#13