","","regex"]`
Is there a better way to do this? I started with a simple regex to find my own address first (and yes I have a backup!).
Since this is a new discourse instance, I’m not concerned about removing any @ mentions etc.
Thx.
---
### Author:  [@Mark\_Schmucker](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Mark_Schmucker)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2021, 6:10am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/removing-email-addresses-from-imported-posts/193369/2 "2021-06-10T06:10:10Z")
Here is a quick script @pfaffman wrote for us. Any crappy parts are things I changed. It has a few bells and whistles you may not need, for example a cutoff date so it only removes email addresses from posts before that date.
I found it best to replace addresses with ‘email@removed.com’, rather than remove them entirely. Can’t remember why- I think it played nicer with surrounding brackets.
```plaintext
def remove_email_addresses
n=0
test_mode=false
dt=DateTime.new(2019, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0)
no_emails="email@removed."
Post.where("raw like '%@%'").find_each do |post|
sleep 0.1
if post.created_at < dt
post.raw.gsub!(/[a-z0-9+-_.]+@[a-z0-9+-]+[. ,;\\]/i,no_emails)
if test_mode
puts post.raw
sleep 10
end
post.save unless test_mode
post.rebake! unless test_mode
puts "saved"
n+=1
puts n.to_s
else
puts "new post, leaving as-is"
end
end
nil
end
> remove_email_addresses
```
---
### Author:  [@vincentp](https://meta.discourse.org/u/vincentp)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2021, 6:12am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/removing-email-addresses-from-imported-posts/193369/3 "2021-06-10T06:12:49Z")
Excellent thanks, I’ll give it a try.