Hi,
How can i delete all archived cards?
Thanks,
Bilgehan
Hi Bilgehan,
Marta here, from Trello Support.
Right now, it's possible to delete cards by accessing the archive, which you can find on your board's menu, and deleting them from there.
Right now, it's not possible to bulk delete archived cards, so you'll need to do that one by one.
Here's an article from our help docs that gives you more details about it: http://help.trello.com/article/795-archiving-and-deleting-cards
I hope that helps!
Marta
Are there any plans for bulk-delete? Furthermore, if there was a way to delete cards and lists directly rather than having to archive them first. Maybe it's just me but I've never needed to revisit an archived task, but then again I'm a private single user, and usage patterns may vary when Trello is used as a collaborative tool. Still, those of use who use Trello as a to-do list would welcome a direct way to delete. For us, having to archive, then delete, is an unnecessary extra step. Like the Chinese say, it's like "taking off one's trousers to fart". I'd say make both options, "Archive" and "Delete" directly available, and let users decide what they wish to do. Thanks for an awesome app!
+1
I don't understand why bulk delete (either in-app or api) is so restricted.. it's almost as if you want to retain the cards for your own use...
Deleting cards is currently a multi-click process with modal pop ups - this isn't a 2018 way of doing things - why can't i just swipe left to delete them from the archive in iOS??
PLEASE add this feature. achived cards are shown in search result and causes slow response. which is not what I search (and likely for most people).
I second the calls here for a way to delete directly. Exactly as previous commenters have said, having to archive then delete is extra clicks, and the archived items just clutter up search results. The ability to delete directly/easily would be a big improvement.
I second the calls here for bulk deletion.
I understand Trello developers not wanting people to harm themselves by directly deleting cards - make them archive cards instead, and delete them one-by-one afterwards, if absolutely necessary. Most people think they want a "delete immediate" feature, until they delete something important and can never get it back. The principle of archiving first & deleting later is a very very good idea. Most email systems do this, when you "delete" an email it just goes into a Trash or Recycle folder (which often expires old items after some amount of time, and gives the user a "empty trash" button of some sort for manual cleaning).
I have a task-list board which has had so many cards pass thru it over the last few years, it's pretty large when I back it up (by saving the JSON data for the board to my laptop). And I know that I will never want to retrieve any of those archived cards, yet they stay associated with the board as part of its data.
Maybe a compromise can be found, such as a single button under board settings, "clear old archive", which would delete any archived cards older than like 1 year old. And it would need an "are you sure?" prompt, so people can't delete things unexpectedly. That would help me a lot.
I guess I could create a fresh task-list board, copy all my lists from old board to new board, delete the old board, and rename the new board to the old board's name. I could just schedule myself to do that once a year ("spring cleaning"). Maybe I'll do that.
I would also like to have the option to bulk delete archived cards.
Since this option is not available now, I use the following workaround:
I create a board called trash with a list called trash.
Then instead of archiving cards, I move them to the trash board/list.
Then every once in a while, I close the board, delete it and then create it again.
All cards in trash are deleted.
The thing is that products like Trello are used by people with many different use cases. I get what you write, Paul, and everything sounds sensible. Then put yourself into my shoes: I wrote a script against the Trello API to bulk import cards from another source. In the script I made a mistake which resulted in the description field to be wrong. So, I found myself having to delete 200 cards... And, yes, there are API endpoints to close (archive) and delete cards, but I guess you understand why I didn't necessarily want to write a custom script to delete cards.
I also second the option to have the following features:
- card action that allows immediate DELETE (with warning) instead of archive
- bulk action to delete all archived cards at once
Reason: I use the JSON export to work with my data (primarily to just print a single card list using http://connie-clark.github.io/print-trello/) BUT the page takes a very very very long time to load because the JSON is including ALL data including all archived cards (JSON file is about 20x larger than it needs to be)
agreed!
Clever workaround. Nice.
I just don't understand why Trello won't add the OPTION to delete all archived cards. Make the people who want that feature happy. Don't punish us.
Being able to bulk delete cards is a basic matter of privacy. I want to be able to do this with my data. It should be an option offered by trello
I would also like to have this option available in the App and/or on the website. I know that this comment might actually give Trello/Atlassian an excuse not to implement this feature at all, but in case you still want to remove your Archived cards, I've created a small program that uses the Trello API to iterate over all your boards and delete all archived cards. Don't blame me if it doesn't do what you want, YMMV, etc.
For the brave, see https://github.com/hartogjr/trello_api_client
Works for those with full access to Linux machines and dev chops (which I have), but it's not a feature -- it's an applet. I'll check it out!
I also agree that you should be able to bulk delete for matters of privacy and general housekeeping.
The fact that there has been zero engagement on a 3 year old open issue, and no updates, makes me want to use a diffferent service.
There are multiple use cases for enabling this feature, or at least enabling an API that could do it.Terrible support, terrible community engagement.You just lost a previous Trello advocate
For those familiar with Docker, I've made a small routine for bulk deletion of trello archived cards: https://github.com/selimrbd/delete-trello-archives. It takes some time to completely delete all cards if you have several thousands of them (~ 600 deletions / minute).
This seriously needs to be a function they add!
Test.
Hello Trello? Are you listening? There are A LOT of us that are clamoring for better delete options for OUR data (chiefly bulk deleting functionality). Please don't be evil and give us this functionality!
I have a solution!
I stumbled upon this page after googling for a solution to this problem. I had to manually delete 200+ cards which was annoying. So I created a codepen to automate it. Complete with an "Atlassian Blue" form button.
Here it is: https://codepen.io/jwktje/full/XWKOEeR
It automatically gets all archived cards on a board and deletes them for you. This is done through the official REST API for Trello using only Javascript Fetch and your own user API key and token. This means the script runs locally. You don't need to install anything or allow oauth access to your account, and no third-party needs access to your account.
The script is open source inside Codepen so you can check my Javascript.
If you found this useful please vote this answer up and maybe think of me for any future projects where you need custom business logic and/or automation. I'm not spamming my website here but it's mentioned on the Codepen
I posted a solution
A one-off solution is to duplicate the board. Click the menu in Trello, then click Copy Board. You will then get a copy of the board without its archived cards or lists.
I did that early on in searching for a solution... they followed me to the new board. And no, I have NO idea how that worked. I created a new board, with new list names... didn't stop 'em from appearing in the same list position (i.e., 1st one, 2nd one) that were in the original board (which I deleted, after archiving the cards and lists in them first). I submitted this initially as a bug. Weird feature, as it stands...
2021 and we STILL don't have this feature? Sure, we can get an add-on or get code from someone's Docker library (assuming the latest updates didn't break the code?), but sheesh. Users have been asking for this feature for years.
I finally gave up and created a new board, moved all active lists to it, moved all the Butler tasks, and closed the old board.
When I tried to copy the board, the system balked. Maybe I waited too long and there was too much cleanup ;-).
I don´t know if this helps, but I am deleting all archived cards by makind a board duplicate and deleting the old ones. The archived does not copy with lists and cards along.
Hello
There's an easy way to delete cards using Planyway, you'd just need to press shift+delete while hovering over a card or by multi-selecting several cards and then pressing shift+delete.
You can read more here: https://planyway.com/help/features/tips-and-tricks#2-delete-a-card-with-one-click
it works,thank you!
Sorry Atlassian, but this is classic bad behaviour. Pretend to give users control over their data, but then make it really hard to actually delete it.
This issue has been open for nearly 4 years. Not good enough, I am deleting my account today.
You can use this script to delete all your archived cards. The steps are much easier than my old answer:1. Open your board, where you want to delete all of your archived cards
2. Open dev console, and copy paste this code
(async function(){ async function getJSON(url){ let res = await fetch(url) let json = await res.json() return json } let dsc = decodeURIComponent(document.cookie.split(';').find(v => v.includes('dsc=')).split('=')[1]) let boardId = (await getJSON(window.location.origin + window.location.pathname + '.json')).id let archivedCards = await getJSON(`https://trello.com/1/boards/${boardId}/cards/closed`) for(let {id, name} of archivedCards){ await fetch(`https://trello.com/1/cards/${id}`, { method: 'DELETE', headers:{ "Content-Type":"application/json" }, body:JSON.stringify({ dsc }) }) console.log(`${name} deleted`) } console.log(`Finished, total ${archivedCards.length} cards deleted`)}())
And, boom. Just wait till all the cards deleted.
Thank you for creating something that will do this! I've tried to use this a few times and after I input the required items it says...
Input received. Getting all archived cards on board: wrT5SAIW Waiting on input in the form above...
It appears that it's waiting on more info from me, but I've already input the details that it's asking for.
Any suggestions? I desperately need this, lol. I have over 19k archived cards and the new calendar view will not work for me due to this.
Thanks in advance for any advice you can give.
I've tried to generate API keys but found this error. Any suggestion?
Thank you. This approach worked beautifully with one small tweak to your code (it didn't work for me otherwise):
for(let i of a)
Instead of:
for(i of a)
Another necessities not being address by trello.
I know it might have something to do with security or something. But that can easily be fix by only making the. Feature available to premium and enterprise admins.
Or just simply set a password for deleting all archive.
Oh yeah, sorry about that. I am still amateur at Javascript. It's already fixed.And also, I have an idea about using promise, so it can be fully automated, not sure if I am going to (or can) implement it.
Brilliant. Thank you
It's another work around that I use. More low tech than the others suggested. I've no idea about code or API or any on that stuff.
I have created another board called Archive, this board has one list also called archived
If I want to archive a card I just Move it to that board and list. Then later I can use Bulk actions and delete then if I want to.
I did of course originally have to manually delete cards that I had previously archived one by one but that's a couple of hours and then it's done
Brixton
Good idea...this seems much easier than deleting hundreds(thousands?) Of archived stuff. I'm shocked that there is no "proper" way to just delete all the archived cards...just like you empty the trash folder every once in a while after you're sure you don't anything in there again.
Hey folks,Thank you for bearing on this one with us. I know this is a highly requested feature, and although we do not have an ETA for this one yet, we do have an amazing workaround tool created by one of our Support Engineers. Hope you have a nice week!
This is another great idea. If you frequently archive whole lists, another solution is that you can create a "Delete" board and instead of archiving the lists, you can move the lists to the Delete board and then just close and delete that entire board.
"This issue has been open for nearly 4 years. Not good enough, I am deleting my account today."
Issue is still open since 5 years. That's clear eveidence that everything is about to store your data not allow to easily delete them. I plan to move my data and delete account.
It looks like you're new here. Sign in or register to get started.
