Bulk remove users

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Users are discussing how to bulk remove inactive users in Discourse after importing data from phpBB3. yavuz initially imported 4,000 users with no posts and sought a way to delete them. zogstrip suggested using Rails console with User.where(post_count: 0).destroy_all, but this failed because post_count is now stored in the user_stats table. zogstrip corrected the query to User.joins(:user_stat).where("user_stats.post_count = 0").destroy_all, which yavuz confirmed works. jomaxro extended the query to also filter users inactive for over a year, which zogstrip approved. Queth asked how to delete all non-admin users before final import to prevent accidental emails, and leonardo recommended using UserDestroyer for safer, cleaner deletions: destroyer = UserDestroyer.new(Discourse.system_user); User.joins(:user_stat).where("user_stats.post_count = 0").each { |u| destroyer.destroy(u) }. Users are advised to always backup before running destructive queries.

1

I have imported my old data from phpBB3 which went smooth. But I made a mistake by not first cleaning up the old inactive users and still importing them. I now have around 4000 users with no posts I wish to remove.

What is the best way to bulk remove users?

2

If you really don’t care about these users, then I would do this

  1. make a backup (better safe than sorry)
  2. ssh into your server and type
cd /var/discourse
./launcher enter app
rails c
User.where(post_count: 0).destroy_all
3

These instructions produce the following error:
[1] pry(main)> User.where(post_count: 0).destroy_all ActiveRecord::StatementInvalid: PG::UndefinedColumn: ERROR: column users.post_count does not exist LINE 1: SELECT "users".* FROM "users" WHERE "users"."post_count" = 0 ^ : SELECT "users".* FROM "users" WHERE "users"."post_count" = 0 from /var/www/discourse/vendor/bundle/ruby/2.3.0/gems/rack-mini-profiler-0.10.1/lib/patches/db/pg.rb:90:in `exec'

This is not really documented I think but if it is please point me in the right direction?

4

“post count” != “post_count” ??

5

My bad, the post_count property was moved to another table for optimization reasons.

Here’s the updated query

User.joins(:user_stat).where("user_stats.post_count = 0").destroy_all
6

Thank you, the updated query works!

7

One of my sites uses SSO and we’re looking to remove users that have never posted and haven’t been seen in a year (to avoid killing users who are just quiet). Is this query valid in the rails console?

User.joins(:user_stat).where("user_stats.post_count = 0 AND previous_visit_at <= '2016-05-20'::timestamp").destroy_all
8

It looks good to me.

14

I have the same issue, but with users I need to remove before doing the final import. I have been working on creating a base setup with all settings/themes/whatever before doing the import - now (after a lot of work) I discover I had done this on a partial import that had imported 4000 users already.

I wish to delete those so nobody will accidentally get any emails of digests or whatever (when I forget to change those settings).

How do I adapt that query so only the admin user will remain ?
There are 4000 or so in the active userlist
and 30 or so in the suspended users list.

thank you in advance :slight_smile:

16

Note: nowadays there is a specific class for destroying Users and associated records cleanly: UserDestroyer.

So instead of this:

This should be done:

destroyer = UserDestroyer.new(Discourse.system_user)
User.joins(:user_stat).where("user_stats.post_count = 0").each { |u| destroyer.destroy(u) }