# Deleting 40K topics
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/deleting-40k-topics/98781
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [October 5, 2018, 6:39am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/deleting-40k-topics/98781 "2018-10-05T06:39:00Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@gerald](https://meta.discourse.org/u/gerald)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2018, 6:39am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/deleting-40k-topics/98781/1 "2018-10-05T06:39:00Z")
Hi,
I am trying to delete ~40,000 topics from discourse. The method I use is programming a browser macro service [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/kantu-browser-automation/gcbalfbdmfieckjlnblleoemohcganoc](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/kantu-browser-automation/gcbalfbdmfieckjlnblleoemohcganoc) to go to a specific search page in my Discourse site, click on  then select all and click on  and click on the red delete-topics button.
I play this macro in a loop so it deletes 50 posts at a time, but after a few cycles, the site crashes.
Is there a better method?
Why is deleting posts such a heavy task for the server?
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2018, 6:43am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/deleting-40k-topics/98781/2 "2018-10-05T06:43:19Z")
How did you get into a situation where you need to delete 40,000 topics? Why are these topics there?
At any rate, you should be deleting them from the command line, browser automation isn’t a good way to approach this.
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### Author:  [@gerald](https://meta.discourse.org/u/gerald)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2018, 8:18am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/deleting-40k-topics/98781/3 "2018-10-05T08:18:32Z")
They were created by a script that publishes wordpress posts that creates a matching discourse topic for every wordpress post.
Unfortunately I don’t have the knowledge how to do this in the command line, but I still think that the batch delete can be improved. For example, it lets you choose up to 1000 topics to edit/delete but it can’t handle such a task, perhaps because it tries to do them all at once. Maybe there is a way to do this more sequentially so the server can handle the load. If I could delete 1000 posts at a time, i wouldn’t have a problem doing it manually via the browser, only 40 time for 40K topics.
EDIT: I increased the server power (to 4 cpus, 4GB ram) and restarted the browser automation and it deleted everything within a couple of hours… so in case anyone reads this in the future, it is something you can do if you don’t have command line experience..
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### Author:  [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2018, 10:59am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/deleting-40k-topics/98781/4 "2018-10-05T10:59:14Z")
Can you not restore from a recent backup?
You might search here for ‘rails delete post’ or, if you have a budget, ask for help in #Marketplace.
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### Author:  [@system](https://meta.discourse.org/u/system)
#### Post date: [November 4, 2018, 11:09am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/deleting-40k-topics/98781/5 "2018-11-04T11:09:36Z")
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