# How can I permanently delete a topic with multiple posts? **URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-can-i-permanently-delete-a-topic-with-multiple-posts/356159 **Category:** Support **Tags:** permanently-delete **Created:** [March 6, 2025, 9:52pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-can-i-permanently-delete-a-topic-with-multiple-posts/356159 "2025-03-06T21:52:16Z") **Posts on this page:** 6 **Page:** 1
### Author: ![Jongin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/4af34b/32.png) [@Jongin](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Jongin) #### Post date: [March 6, 2025, 9:52pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-can-i-permanently-delete-a-topic-with-multiple-posts/356159/1 "2025-03-06T21:52:16Z")
How can I permanently delete a topic with multiple posts? With this method, i only can delete posts one by one e later the topic > [@Introducing permanently delete post functionality](https://meta.discourse.org/t/introducing-permanently-delete-post-functionality/207109): > > When a post is deleted in Discourse, we perform a soft-delete. This means that post is still present in the database in case an administrator wants to recover it later. A soft-delete is not sufficient when the deleted post contains sensitive information and must be pruned from the database completely. For those situations, we are introducing the ability to permanently delete a post. To use this feature, enable the can permanently delete setting. However, please be aware of the risks i… ---
### Author: ![HAWK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/hawk/32/86627_2.png) [@HAWK](https://meta.discourse.org/u/HAWK) #### Post date: [March 6, 2025, 9:55pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-can-i-permanently-delete-a-topic-with-multiple-posts/356159/2 "2025-03-06T21:55:04Z")
Does deleting the first post not delete the entire topic? (I haven’t tried.) ---
### Author: ![Arkshine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/arkshine/32/298682_2.png) [@Arkshine](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Arkshine) #### Post date: [March 6, 2025, 9:55pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-can-i-permanently-delete-a-topic-with-multiple-posts/356159/3 "2025-03-06T21:55:10Z")
What about selecting all posts first (it’s two clicks), deleting them, then permanently delete the topic? ![The image shows a section of a message board from Feb 21st, featuring a discussion about a discourse forum with a cursor icon, a lock icon indicating staff-only access, and a button suggesting user interaction. (Captioned by AI)](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/meta/original/4X/4/3/7/437fea2bf11cdc7eafaf7231310a9debd9e79732.gif) ---
### Author: ![Mako-Poisoned](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/mako-poisoned/32/491709_2.png) [@Mako-Poisoned](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Mako-Poisoned) #### Post date: [March 6, 2025, 10:51pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-can-i-permanently-delete-a-topic-with-multiple-posts/356159/4 "2025-03-06T22:51:18Z")
Hey, I wasn’t even aware of this…good to know! ---
### Author: ![Heliosurge](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/heliosurge/32/571810_2.png) [@Heliosurge](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Heliosurge) #### Post date: [March 7, 2025, 1:48am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-can-i-permanently-delete-a-topic-with-multiple-posts/356159/5 "2025-03-07T01:48:56Z")
That pic should be added to a Documentation topic. As part of a how to. 😉 ---
### Author: ![kddkd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/df705f/32.png) [@kddkd](https://meta.discourse.org/u/kddkd) #### Post date: [July 29, 2026, 12:56pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-can-i-permanently-delete-a-topic-with-multiple-posts/356159/6 "2026-07-29T12:56:58Z")
Hello, After testing, I found that this doesn’t work. I first soft-deleted a topic and its 75 posts by selecting all of them. However, when attempting to permanently delete the topic, I received the following message: “There are still 75 posts in this topic that need to be permanently deleted before the topic itself can be permanently deleted.” It seems that permanent deletion only applies to individual posts and cannot be performed in batch.