# Tool to remove email addresses from posts
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/tool-to-remove-email-addresses-from-posts/174582
**Category:** Marketplace
**Created:** [December 30, 2020, 9:58am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/tool-to-remove-email-addresses-from-posts/174582 "2020-12-30T09:58:22Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Mark\_Schmucker](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Mark_Schmucker)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2020, 9:58am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/tool-to-remove-email-addresses-from-posts/174582/1 "2020-12-30T09:58:22Z")
**What would you like done?**
Our forum was migrated from a mailing list platform, and many posts contain email addresses, for example “email me at [xyz@gmail.com](mailto:xyz@gmail.com)” or in a signature block at the end of the post. For privacy reasons, we would like to remove all email addresses, or replace them with “email address removed”.
There is an exception: email addresses are allowed, and should not be removed, in the first post of a topic, or if the post is authored by a user named “Summary”. Either check is sufficient, whichever is easier- you don’t have to check both.
We don’t need a UI. I’m not a rails guy but can type a rake command, something like [Replace a string in all posts](https://meta.discourse.org/t/replace-a-string-in-all-posts/48729), or can run something from the rails console. I assume email addresses can be found with a regex.
It would be great if it printed a report of what was replaced. Just printing to the console would be fine unless there’s a better way (/logs?).
[EDIT] Perhaps this should be a plugin that runs periodically to scrub any newly-posted email addresses. Open to suggestions.
**When do you need it done?**
Next few weeks would be great.
**What is your budget, in $ USD that you can offer for this task?**
Open to offers- please PM me with your approach and cost estimate.
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### Author:  [@fzngagan](https://meta.discourse.org/u/fzngagan)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2020, 10:34am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/tool-to-remove-email-addresses-from-posts/174582/2 "2020-12-30T10:34:55Z")
Hello from Pavilion. Sending a PM regarding this.
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### Author:  [@system](https://meta.discourse.org/u/system)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2021, 10:34am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/tool-to-remove-email-addresses-from-posts/174582/3 "2021-01-29T10:34:58Z")
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