# Wildcard delete posts
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/wildcard-delete-posts/146689
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [April 3, 2020, 11:50am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/wildcard-delete-posts/146689 "2020-04-03T11:50:58Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Paul\_King](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Paul_King)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2020, 11:50am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/wildcard-delete-posts/146689/1 "2020-04-03T11:50:58Z")
Hi, I am looking for a simple way (within the Discourse admin environment) to wildcard delete posts - for example with certain known auto generated titles (these are imported from an old Yahoo Group email forum - many are notification emails containing nothing useful).
It looks like [Data Explorer](https://meta.discourse.org/t/32566?silent=true) plugin can’t delete anything - just wondering what other options exist?
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### Author:  [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2020, 12:08pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/wildcard-delete-posts/146689/2 "2020-04-03T12:08:46Z")
You can do it from the rails console. You should be able to find some examples if you attach) search (bulk, maybe?)
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### Author:  [@Paul\_King](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Paul_King)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2020, 1:18pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/wildcard-delete-posts/146689/3 "2020-04-03T13:18:33Z")
Thanks Jay - ‘Rails’ was the part I was trying to avoid…
Even better,(while dreaming) would be a wild card flag posts option, so there is still a chance within Discourse to spot a mistake in selections resulting, before deletion.
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### Author:  [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2020, 2:05pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/wildcard-delete-posts/146689/4 "2020-04-03T14:05:20Z")
If you are self hosted it’s just not that hard to do it at the rails console. It’s just a line or two. If it’s something you need to do often your could investigate the API.
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### Author:  [@Paul\_King](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Paul_King)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2020, 1:55am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/wildcard-delete-posts/146689/5 "2020-04-06T01:55:12Z")
Thanks Jay - not a regular task, but something that it would be good to do in a nice user friendly environment, where there is a preview of what would be deleted, to minimize the odds of unintended results.
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### Author:  [@system](https://meta.discourse.org/u/system)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2024, 3:38am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/wildcard-delete-posts/146689/6 "2024-04-26T03:38:46Z")
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### Author:  [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2024, 9:01am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/wildcard-delete-posts/146689/7 "2024-04-26T09:01:56Z")